Cry Korea

Citation preview

CRY KOREA BY

REGINALD THOMPSON

LONDON

MACDONALD & CO. (Publishers) LTD.

CRY KOREA

By the same author: ARGENTINE INTERLUDE DOWN UNDER- AN AUSTRALIAN ODYSSEY GLORY HOLE WILD ANIMAL MAN TOMORROW WE LIVE LAND OF TOMORROW AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT WALES HOME IN HAM PORTRAIT OF A PATRIOT VOICE FROM THE WILDERNESS MEN UNDER FIRE BLACK CARIBBEAN DEVIL AT MY HEELS

The Author (photographed by S tephen Barber)

Frontispiece}

CRY KOREA BY

REGINALD THOMPSON

LONDON

MACDONALD & CO. (Publishers) LTD.

First published in 1951 by Macdonald & Co. (Publishers) Ltd. 16 Maddox Street, W.l Made and printed in Great Britain by Purnell and Sons, Ltd. Paulton (Somerset) and London

To the memory of

CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY and

IAN MORRISON And · to those whose friendship and fortitude lightened the darkness of the worst of these days, and whose courage and integrity are not the least of the hopes of mankind : Homer Bigart, Stephen Barber, Alan Whicker, Lionel Crane, G. Ward Price, Tom Shaw, Tom Lambert, Louis Heren, Jim Hays, Ralph Izzard, Dwight Martin, Georgie Herman, Bernard Forbes, Bernie Kaplan, Henri Turenne, Mike James, Alex Valentine, Roy Macartney, Roland Hurman, Freddie Sparks.

And to those others whose support in more peaceful surroundings lent me courage.

"In times when I feel that all that makes for the dignity. the honour. and the true value of man is in such great danger -so threatened on all sides-what we go on living for, what gives a reason to our life, is precisely the knowledge that there are some young people-however few and from whatever country- who do not sit back. who keep intact their moral and intellectual integrity and protest against every totalitarian slogan, every movement that seeks to bend. to control, to subjugate thought, to weaken the soul (for in the last analysis it is the soul that is in question); it is the knowledge that they are there, these young people, that they are alive, they, the salt of the earth; it is precisely that which sustains our confidence, we the old; it is that which permits me who am already so old to face death without despair. "I believe in the value of the small nations. I believe in the value of the minority. The world will be saved by the few." ANDRE GIDE (Spoken one week before he died.)

CONTENTS PAGE

11

PROLOGUE

PART ONE: THE ROAD TO SEOUL CHAPTER

THE ROAD TO 'SOMEWHERE' FIRST LEG INCHON THE INCHON BRIDGEHEAD ACROSS THE HAN RIVER SLOWLY TOWARDS SEOUL THE FALL OF SEOUL THE END OF THE SEOUL STORY

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT

19

26 33 39

48 54 68 80

PART TWO: THE ROAD TO PYONGYANG BRIEF INTERLUDE . ACROSS THE PARALLEL THE ADVANCE THE 27TH TAKES THE LEAD THE FALL OF PYONGYANG

NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN

97 109 133

152 171

PART THREE: THE ROAD TO RUIN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN

THE KOREAN REHEARSAL FAR EWELL TO PEACE . CHINESE PUZZLE . ADVANCE IN LINE ABREAST THE FLIGHT FROM THE CHONGCHON

187 208

218 233 245

PART FOUR: THE ROAD BACK NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE

TENSION IN TOKYO THE END OF THE BEGINNING THE YELLOW SEA THE F.,ILOGUE INDEX .

ix

263 271 280 293 299

ILLUSTRATIONS The Author Seoul . The Australian Battalion Taegu . Yesong river bridge Crossing point, Imjin river Kumchon road Namchonjon 'The din was terrific' In close country . Captain Slim, adjutant, Padre, author Men of Middlesex North Korean village and villagers Yongbyon . The Argylls at Hungso-ri The Turkish Brigade, officers South Koreans, Yongbyon area R efugees, Chongchon river road Korean children Cry Korea . No-man's-land Refugees Horse in burning village With the Garry Owens Lt.-Col. Huff's battalion Dwight Martin, author, Homer Bigart H.M.S. Kenya x

Frontispiece Facing page 32 33

48 49

80 80

81 96 96 97 97 128 129 144 145 176 176 177 192

193 224 224 225 225

240 241

THE PROLOGUE going to Tokyo. I am going to war. The dull throbbing of my sore and swollen left arm had ·subsided into a rhythm on the borders of pleasure. Weariness lay upon me like a slab, transcending discomfort, and beyond sleep. The lesser ache in my right arm irritated me vaguely. It had had less injections than the left, which had borne the brunt- for perhaps the hundredth time- of the typhus, TetTox, cholera, yellow fever. I did not even want to smoke. My mind held pictures of a peculiar vividness and inconsequence, as one might look carelessly at a picture book. The sharp, perky face of a man in a raincoat under the lamplight. I could see the signpost at the corner-'Southall 3 miles'the long black shape of a Standard Jaguar glistening in the September drizzle, and a woman in a light transparent grey raincoat, the hood framing her flushed open face, a pleasant face, comely. They had been quarrelling, this girl and the sharp-featured little man with the thin line of moustache, shifty little eyes, brown hat, snap brim. Indelible impressions. A whole week of them. So that I lived again in my garden and admired all the tomatoes I had grown from seed. They had sprung up wonderfully, a miracle, threatening to pour out through the greenhouse roof, and then climbing the sheltered walls. Astonishing plants dripping with tomatoes. I saw a vision of chutney far, far ahead, like a pin-point at the end of an almost unimaginable tunnel. Journey's end. Pilgrim's progress. On and on from Argentine Interlude a quarter of a century in the past through all the world. The unending quest for courage, the Holy Grail. I

AM

My ears had begun to soften the steady roar of the engines. When the engine note appears to change suddenly it is usually the ear note adjusting. 11

12

THE PROLOGUE

"You can see the lights of Shoreham," said the hostess, leaning over. I could see the faces, bright-eyed with excitement, thrilling to my new adventure, of Topsy, Thompo, Beany-Bird, Ginger David, Frankie Ferocious, and, at the heart of them all, sweet Mel. The Mostyn's in the main street. Bright Saturday morning, trailing down to Eastoe the grocer. "Heavens, you are a lucky man! What a bunch of good lookers! " Only last Saturday morning. And now it was Friday. And so to war. None but the brave deserve the fair. Still dodging the eight-fifteen and the bowler hat, striving to earn all this love and loveliness. For in my heart the flame of magic burned as it has always burned. Life must be magic. Life is romance. Life is fairy story. And the whisper soft as leaves, so that my ears and all my nerves and senses everlastingly taut in silence straining to catch the very essence. How long? Always. The magic lies within you. You must make dreams come true. Illusion is real. Disillusion is damnation. Faces in the bus, the adorable little diamond face of Mel with the great grey-blue eyes framed in the tawny mane of hair. 'Fortu~e my husband ... fortune my daddy ... fortune my friend . . . .' The great tail of the Argonaut with the letters G- ALHY. For some reason I found myself liking this G, this hieroglyph of letters. Fortune. Geneva lay like a sumptuous star on the dark velvet heart of the earth 17 ,000 feet beneath. The Alps. It is wise to give the Alps space in the sky. And all at once, Rome, boulevards and palisades of glittering jewels, and the hills be-diamonded with light, a vision into a cave of fabulous treasure. We have stolen an hour from the clock and added it to ourselves, and through the short days and nights we must win eight hours more across the world. Absurd. The day after tomorrow England will be nine hours behind me. They will all be sleeping while I am waking, my night will be their day. A long, long way. The immensity of distance sharpened by speed to new perspectives. Oh, those leisured days of ships

THE PROLOGUE

13

and trains and horses which filled my early days of travel. How wonderful was travel then~ how well one grew to know the peoples and the places, and the distances between. Now, through the stars. Crete. Alexandria. Cairo. And it is morning on the fringe of the desert with the shapes of the pyramids blue-grey in the soft haze. The quarrel on the corner of the Great West Road glimpsed from the bus: that strange ghost story of Versailles told by an old schoolmistress-or was it two old schoolmistresses. Time is assuredly a strange thing, less tangible than one had believed. It is not yet dawn in England, and Suffolk sleeps. All that day we flew across the desert patterned with the dried runnels of the wadies like vast skeletons of trees, scoured by age-old trails, and the geometrical precision of the oil pipe line. The young man in the seat next to mine is on his first journey. He has answered an advertisement in a newspaper and is off to a job in Bangkok. Timber. He is twenty-one and excited. It is my eighteenth 'assignment', I think, and heaven knows how many journeys ranging over half the world, and I am excited, too. A lone wolf, baying on the high ridges in the harsh moonlight, someone once said. For what? For courage, and whatever there may be to seek. " I answered an advertisement in a newspaper, too," I said, "in a kind of way." Basra is like a furnace. "Lord! " said the young man. "Is it as bad as this in Bangkok?" "It isn't," I said. "This is Hell's Corner. Fear not." We crawled under the baking heat into the humid shade of the airport and drank tea. I had experienced a twinge of anxiety about Bangkok. Ten days earlier I had killed off a character in a novel I was working on in an air disaster at Bangkok. I had not the faintest idea of going there myself. Odd if one wrote one's own obituary in this way. Bangkok, of all the places I might have chosen. Singapore would have been more probable. Six hours later Karachi. Pakistan, Hindustan. India, the brightest jewel in the imperial crown. England, my England. May its light pour upon the minds of men as the light of

14

THE PROLOGUE

Athens, as the light of a star which shines long after it is there. . . . But it is there, still. Karachi is a pleasing airport. The goddesses upon the walls have red hair, superb flaming Godivas riding the clouds with cherubim. Or was that somewhere else? The girl children of Bahrein have reddish hair. Through the night the Rolls Royce Merlins pour out their incessant song of power high above India. "We are flying at 16,500 feet. Air speed 255 knots. Would you like something, sir?" "Thank you, indeed I would. A large Scotch and baby ginger." I must have dozed over India, awakening in the dawn to gaze down upon a landscape which I was certain was Guatemala. It was nearly five minutes before I adjusted myself to India. It looked most beautiful, green and blue, wild hill and valley and river, here and there an habitation. Calcutta for breakfast. What day is it? Two air force sergeants from Basra say that it is Sunday morning. In the heart of Suffolk, so green, so lush, so quiet, in the heart of England, my wife and babes are sleeping in a house that was old five hundred years ago. England goes on. It is the middle of the night. We stayed overnight in Rangoon, enjoying the drive in from the airport through the half-derelict suburbs. Rangoon has a look of desolation, of poverty, almost of squalor. It had a bad war. The two sergeants are my guests at dinner with the young man who is my room mate. The bath is memorable. Body scruffy, clothes crumpled and soiled. Two days and nights, yet half the world between. We feel brand-new and gay. There is music and dancing. A walk in the night. And sleep, real sleep. So that like giants refreshed we look down upon that wilderness of 'road' where so many died, and where so many who live have their memories. And presently the flooded rice paddies of Thailand reflect the sky in their mirrors, the whole earth neatly sectioned with water-colour skyscapes. The gold and green of Bangkok from the sky, a wonder city of the East, rich and princely, its exquisite little people courteous and kind, the air hostess, petite, gentle, efficient and faintly smiling, in her neat uniform. Luncheon well served in

THE PROLOGUE

15

the restaurant, barbaric jewellery in the show cases, coolness under the slow-revolving fans. And sparrows nesting and clustering on the world map fashioned in relief upon a wall of the main hall. How they like Korea, these sparrows! Curling down from Manchuria it encircles a small nest. Hongkong is also popular. For forty-eight hours now we in the Argonaut have shared an experience which has at last created an easiness of manner, s·miles and words without introductions or embarrassment. In the small semi-circular lounge aft Major Tom Laister, Korea bound with his Royal Ulster Rifles moustaches to establish 'Public Relations', King's Messenger Wing Commander Norris, myself, and an occasional other play poker mildly, interspersed with a variety of talk and regular Scotches. Far below all the seaway to the enchantment of Hongkong, blue seas within the steep green hills, emblazoned in the glory of the evening sun, the myriad rocky islets, small craft with quaintly ribbed sails like fans or the dorsal fins of giant fish glowing gold and filled with light and wind, lively upon the waters. The Argonaut dives swiftly in. "We're committed," remarks Norris. "There's no turning back going into Hongkong. We go or we don't go." No circling here, a steep dive in with the wing tips spreading to the rugged hillsides, fine buildings, a great city, a colony created out of the barren rock, the bustle of a thriving port, mart of the East, ships of war, and the native hovels crouched like beetles in the crevices, between the toes of the hills, so close to the belly of the Argonaut as she flies surely in. Even Sydney has no fairer face than this. Now again there is the peaceful night to replenish the weariness of air. Cool drinks in the lofty marble halls of the Peninsula, cool rooms, good food, and two hours of exploration in the streets of Kowloon. The sergeants are good companions. "See you in Korea ! " But Korea, they assure me, is not for them. The aircraft is silent. England is eight hours of sun time behind. The huddle of folk in the waiting-room at London Airport has dispersed. Only Laister, Norris and I remain to

16

THE PROLOGUE

pass the final hours. Of course, there are 'new boys', but we know them not. We are vieux voyageurs, the Upper Sixth. The lounge is ours, and from it, sipping our whiskies, we look down upon the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Triumph pounding through the fringe of a typhoon, taking the seas heavily upon her flight deck. "We're going into Okinawa," the captain tells us. "The typhoon is behaving rather oddly. Should have moved on." Okinawa, a ten-cent ticket for a Coca-Cola at the world's end. War. Security. No cameras; no welcome here. Stiff-legged for an hour in the waiting-room. Radio blaring on a sickly blue note of sex suffocation. G.I.s lounging. Two aircraft of the R.N.Z.A.F. swoop in to debouch thirty men of the Royal Marine Commandos, shirt-sleeved, heavily tattooed forearms, hot below the waist in battledress and stoutly ribbed black boots. Their presence begins to crystallise a train of thought. The Pusan perimeter is not for me. The tightening band, the dismal story. There is another destiny, and I have felt it for many hours studying the map of Korea. The west coast is open. Tom Laister thinks so, too. Indeed it is obvious. I landed at Haneda, Tokyo, that night with a feeling near to certainty in my mind that something was about to happen which I had to know about. It was 12th September, nine hours in advance of London. Three days and three nights from home. The Far East across the world, and time and space had taken on a new meaning, indigestible. The bright streets of Tokyo glittered with Japanese lanterns. I slept like a log in a tiny box of a bedroom in the Marunouchi Hotel, for the Japanese are very small and they build to fit themselves.

PART ONE

THE ROAD TO SEOUL

B

CHAPTER ONE

THE ROAD TO 'SOMEWHERE' I

I WAS out of Tokyo in less time than I had been in the air from London, but hours in this new time measurement which had whisked me into its orbit had a remarkable capacity. It seems unbelievable now, except for the incontrovertible dates, that in two days and nights I should have laid the foundation of at least one lasting friendship, established a score of warm and friendly contacts, and at last embarked upon the road to 'somewhere'. Life had speeded up in a most curious fashion, and was a great change from growing tomatoes. The Marunouchi Hotel is the Tokyo home and meeting-place of all British and Commonwealth people, and almost all other 'lost souls' or non-Americans, except the Japanese. Its lounges are also the haunt of many Americans, the details of whose lives are known to all the other inhabitants, whether they like it or not. I disliked the Marunouchi on sight, especially the box-like character of my bedroom, but I grew to love it. I had awakened with the feeling that I was still in the air, and looked out of my ninth-floor window with a shudder, disliking heights unless divorced physically from the earth. I knew a sense of urgency. It is an awful feeling to come into a story midway, right out of the picture, no contacts, appalling communications, and striving to catch up with events. On the face of it the form was obvious, to make my number with officialdom, get my military passes, arrange cabling facilities at the terrifying rate of ls. l!d. a word, buy essential clothing, and embark on some aircraft, preferably not a C 54-for they had been killing people somewhat profusely- for Taegu, Korea. That was what I was expected to do, and what would have happened and had happened to everyone so far. But I knew 19

20

THE ROAD TO SEOUL

as surely as if it had been written in letters of fire that something special was about to happen and that there was not a moment to lose. Ten minutes after breakfast a plump, rosy-cheeked, wickedeyed character disguised with a magnificent growth of ginger beard strode into the Marunouchi lounge. We yelped simultaneously in happy recognition, though the bearded apparition's pleasure was tempered shrewdly with caution. For what was I doing here? Was I a clue? It was Alan Whicker of ExTel. "Alan, it's good to see you. What's doing?" "Tommy, I might have known you'd turn up. From whence? For whom? You'll adore Taegu! " It seemed that some sort of positive reaction might have been expected to this opening gambit, for it was on the obvious side, and I saw that Alan was surrounding himself with an invisible garment of wariness. "I'm sure," I said. "But perhaps there are better places." "I've missed the boat," Alan said as angrily as he knows how, for he seldom achieves anything worse than a mild petulance. "Like a damned fool. Everyone withdrawn four days ago, and off they went. It's this absurd no censorship. No briefing. No idea what goes on." I began to realise just what no censorship means in war. It sounds fine, of course, but in fact no plans are ever disclosed in advance, and positioning oneself is largely guesswork. Now and then you simply have a mysterious warning and a leap in the dark. "It can't be too late if it hasn't happened," I said. It was clear that Alan, knowing the ropes, was turning over plans and ways and means of catching up with the expedition. I knew that he had to look after himself and dared not prejudice his chances by telling me too much. One might go where two could not. Alone he might make it. So might I, when I knew what it was I had to 'make'. But there was no harm in Alan showing me the common or garden ropes, especially as he had business with them himself. Five minutes later we were on our way to the Radio Tokyo building, the Public Information Office and holy of

THE ROAD TO 'SOMEWHERE'

21

holies of the newspaper world. "I'm meant to be dead," said Alan. "They may be a bit surprised to see me." He'd been missing for a day or two and an agency had reported him lost. Fleet Street was already sobbing faintly and thinking who to send in his place, until they received his laconic cable'Undead'. The young female Japanese P.I.O. secretary greeted Alan with a little squeal of delight, a faint American accent, not unattractive, and signs of deep affection. "Oh, Alan ! " "Oh, Eleanor ! " "So you're not dead .... " A vast figure in uniform overflowed his paunch onto the other half of the huge desk at which Eleanor sat. "Pappy," said Eleanor, addressing this man mountain, "isn't it good that Alan's not dead? " The figure made some starting-up noises. He was a major with an appearance of benevolence and Falstaffian humour. It was an illusion planted by his bulk. But Eleanor was magnificent. She fixed Alan. She fixed me. She appeared to be almost as fond of me as she was of Alan. Within ten minutes she had my passes under way and had provided an emergency document 'in case I went off to I don't know where' before there was time for the final pass to come through. Eleanor was so good that one was apt to take her for granted. In fact you could have removed the 'P.I.' initials from 'P.I.O.' without her helpful presence. Darkly also she had suggested in the vaguest possible manner that I might telephone a Lieutenant Ellis at the Navy Office. Alan had disappeared. I rushed off to the Provost-Marshal's office and had my photo and fingerprints taken with the utmost indignity. The pass with these insignia upon it was promised within twenty-four hours. I telephoned Lieutenant Ellis and confronted him a few minutes later in the Navy building, feeling somewhat of a fool, for I had no idea what I wanted except that I wanted to go wherever it was. So that when he asked me, rather wearily, what he could do for me, I said: "I want to get t.1ere somehow, and I believe you may be able to help me. "

22

THE ROAD TO SEOUL

And he said : "Where? " "I'm not supposed to know where, am I ?" I asked. The lieutenant shrugged. "Well, there are six on the list ahead of you," he said. "I'll put you down. Not much hope, but we may be running a courier." I rushed off with his promise to telephone me and back to the Radio Tokyo building. By this time the taxi showed 2,000 yen on the meter, and I had about six BAFS (British army pounds) in the world. I told the driver to wait, and went to seek George Thomas Foister. George was no more than a vague name to me. What he would do, or could do, or should do, I had no idea. Simply he acted as a kind of post office for the newspaper I was about to try to represent, and also undertook to see messages safely through. In fact, George turned out to be the head of N.B.C. (National Broadcasting Corporation) and many other things besides, including the agent for Winston Churchill's books, most fascinating to read with all the old warrior's last-minute notes and absolutely final instructions which were seldom final. But mainly George had a genuine urbanity, an unfailing cheerfulness and calm, an almost alarming honesty and directness. He would be a good friend and a bad enemy. He began by producing a quantity of yen and a packet of dollars. He told me where to reach him by telephone night and day from anywhere. We made cabling arrangements, and then George asked innocently: " I suppose you'll be off to Taegu?" "I don't think so," I said. "What do you think? " he asked with a sudden interest, an amazingly friendly smile round his eyes which warmed me. George has the open countenance of an extremely innocent choirboy, yet a very competent choirboy of adult proportions. "Well, George," I said, "you must know much better than I could possibly know. There must be a new attack going in somewhere, and it must be up on the west coast well behind the enemy." "I shouldn't be surprised if you're right," said George, as innocent as a lamb. And then: "Look, Tommy, we're sitting by for this thing night and day, a twenty-four service. The agencies have their head men right in on it. They've all been

THE ROAD TO 'SOMEWHERE'

23

at sea now for some time. It's ripe any day. You want to worry this Ellis. Don't let him rest. Telephone him every couple of hours. " "Won't that infuriate the man?" I asked. "He promised to ring me. " "You ring him," said George. "And keep at it." Two rooms away in the P.I.O. Eleanor had my orders typed out in twelve copies ready for signing. They would be available by morning. There was nothing more I could do except keep on the telephone to Ellis and try not to worry the life out of George Folster. When I got back to the Marunouchi, realising that up to now I wouldn't recognise a single landmark in the great city of Tokyo, there was a brief note for me from Alan. 'Good luck. See you soon.' II

Tokyo, for me, in the next night and day was the road to Radio Tokyo, a swift sortie to the American P.X. and the Q stores on the Ginza, the Marunouchi lounges and the telephone with ever-lessening embarrassment as I realised that being telephoned ten times a day was a commonplace to Lieutenant Ellis. I saw the twisted shapes of the fir trees against the purple skyline beyond the still waters of the broad moat, the massive stone walls, and the great green mound of the Imperial Palace grounds. I had time to glimpse the fascination of the Ginza, its crowded pavements and stalls of toys and every imaginable article, and to wonder at the myriad lights and paper lanterns which made alluring channels of every narrow street. I caught also the strange acrid smell of the city in my nostrils. It seems to pervade everything and is inseparable from Tokyo in my mind, together with the nose and mouth masks which so many Japanese men and women feel constrained to wear. It gives them a featureless look, this white or black pad, looped with a string over the ears, so that it is a shock to see the pad casually removed to reveal nose and mouth, for one had imagined some hideous deformity, leprosy. Apparently the army popularised this habit. As for the odour, it may come from the bad fuel and the furnaces roaring away behind many

24

THE ROAD TO SEOUL

of the taxis, and which almost cook the passengers even on a short journey. It is a clinging, nauseating stench, like burning rubber, or the odour of some unmentionable disease. But there was not time to gain more than a swift impression of these things. I dared not move far away from a telephone and revolved mainly between the two lounges of the Marunouchi, the air-conditioned one upstairs where pneumonia seemed a fair chance, and the over-heated one downstairs where it was customary for someone to remark: "I say, do you feel hot, or is it me?" And then to relax, knowing that the outbreak of fever was common to all. It was more pleasant upstairs to be served Scotch whisky and soda at ninepence a time by diminutive girls in Geisha kimonos and the cloth-toed thick white socks isolating the great toes to grip the centre cord of sandals and which give an animal look to the human foot. Nevertheless the girls were extraordinarily attractive, petite, well-built, for in Western dress downstairs their sturdy legs were revealed. They answered instantly to a quiet call of 'Girl san', unfailingly attentive and smiling, a luxury to the starved Western world. There was an ease of acquaintanceship in all this place, and I was soon drinking with the Uruguayan charge d'affaires, reminiscing with him on the delights of Monte Video, the coast road and the 'langostinos'. "All the same," he told me, "the king prawns here are worthy of respect, and you must try a tempura." He was fascinated by Japan, by the strange formality of their ways, of their art, of everything about them. Presently Tom Laister joined us with Mike Fletcher, a Royal Corps of Signals major from Singapore, whose quiet humour coupled with an awareness of Japanese customs swiftly turned a casual meeting into something memorable. We all dined together and drank some good claret, which even a fat ginger-haired major of unbelievable stupidity failed to spoil. A medical colonel and a I Corps colonel discussed the growing use of helicopters for wounded, especially in a mountainous country like Korea where to be stretcher-borne down the slopes often meant death to the gravely hurt. I cannot remember a day so crammed with people, many of whom I seemed to know intimately in so short a time,

THE ROAD TO 'SOMEWHERE'

25

and many of whom were to greet me later as an 'old friend', and to be greeted similarly. By morning Tom Laister, who had announced that in future he would travel by slow boat, was off to Korea, probably in a C 47. The dirtiest officer any of us had ever seen outside a weapon pit had arrived somewhat breathlessly about midnight, having just flown in from Taegu. He looked as if he had been fighting the war in a ditch single-handed for some months, and Tom Laister plainly did not take kindly to this 'way of the bush' in the Marunouchi lounge. Furthermore he had hoped for a week in Tokyo, and this 'muddied oaf' was the harbinger of his departure. I was still without an idea of the time and place of the mysterious operation about which I continued to telephone Lieutenant Ellis throughout the next day, but I began, talking with Mike Fletcher and the I Corps colonel, and by joining George Foister for pre-luncheon drinks at the American Club, to feel rather more in touch with things. I had given myself a limit of a further twenty-four hours, after which I should embark for Korea anyway, and get on with the job. I had time on the second day to note some of the landmarks on the road to Radio Tokyo, the great moat and mound of the Imperial Palace where Hirohito still claimed the respect and veneration of his people, the strange low yellow-brick fussiness of the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel, reserved for V.I.P.s, the imposing stone block of the Da-ichi building, G.H.Q., with its tasselled Military Police guards, white-gloved, flanking the steps, and looking like planetary visitants under the white cocoons of their helmets. Two by two, armed and truculent, these guardians of the 'Master Race', as they are called more in sorrow than in anger by the nonAmerican inhabitants of Tokyo, also strutted the streets vigilant for trouble. My orders were through, thanks to the efficiency of the affable Eleanor. My pass was signed, sealed and delivered. It seemed a chance in a million that I should get to the right place at the right time, especially as I didn't know where it was. Next day I embarked on the road to 'somewhere'.

CHAPTER TWO FIRST LEG LIEUTENANT ELLIS kept his word. I left my poached egg and ran full tilt with my typewriter and little else to the Navy building half a mile away. I didn't even wait for a taxi, for the message had conveyed the utmost urgency. It was disconcerting to find Ellis's office in a state of complete unexpectancy and Ellis called away 'indefinitely' to a conference. Hadn't he left a message for me? Apparently he had not. Casually a warrant officer said: "Maybe there's orders for you or somethin' on his desk." And there were. "They'll need signin'," said the warrant officer. There were no suggestions forthcoming. Lieutenant Ellis had simply 'taken off'. It was a moment for calm. Within a minute of rumination and getting my breath back a naval lieutenant-commander put his head round the door, looking for Ellis, and I grabbed him as one grabs a lifebelt. He read my orders. "I'll sign 'em," he said. "No one'll ever read them. Hop on my jeep. It's across the street. I'll drop you off where you're going." The regularity with which something like this happens removes it from the world of chance. These things are to be expected, watched for, grasped. In the jeep a young naval officer sprawled his long legs and greeted me without surprise. "Howdy! " He cut short my words of explanation, and welcomed me to take a seat. I read my orders. I was to report at the naval air base, Oppama, Yokusuka, by noon. "We'll make it," said the driver. Ten minutes later we were on our way. The lieutenantcommander had provided himself with a hurried sketch map of the route and the outstanding features. Through Yokohama. Two hours later, after miles of industrial suburbs of the 26

FIRST LEG

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drabbest possible kind, they left me at the gates of the naval air base on the threshold of the countryside. The driver wheeled the jeep in the Texas cowboy tradition, as if it were a horse, said: "Glad to help. Good luck, feller," and off. One has the impression constantly with young Americans that it is all part of a play and that they are speaking lines put into their mouths. The set words and phrases don't seem to reflect the mind of the individual at all, and the clipped tough presentation which, you feel sure, is not the way the young ordinarily speak, adds to this feeling. Once more I was confronted with not knowing where I was going, and the sole occupant of the 'operations' room confessed himself equally ignorant. It was almost noon. 'The lootenant' was at chow. Why didn't I fix myself some chow? Maybe I'd need it. "There ain't nothin' going nowheres in the next hour. That's sure," said the warrant officer in charge. "Eat, feller." So I ate, hurriedly. Another warrant officer took me in hand. I told him my problem. "I'll run you down to the ramp," he said. "Best stick around there. Nothing'll go off without your knowin'." Two P.B.M.s-amphibians with wheels which retract into deep cavities in the sides of the boat-stood by. "They'll be goin' some place," said the warrant officer. Presently some air crew arrived, followed in a few minutes by a naval commander, and three remarkable-looking soldiers with carbines, cartridge belts, shoulder holsters, and deadlylooking guns. One of them wore an ancient sun hat and a suit of 'denims'. He reminded me at once- for his dark leanjowled face fitted the part-of 'Waltzin' Matilda'. He was an Australian bushwhacker to the life, and was, in fact, Jack Percival. We were unknown to each other, and at once he had his typewriter out hammering the mystic words. One of the others was tall and pale, keen grey eyes, very alert, a halfcynical, half-humorous twist to the mouth. The third was slight and dark and very young, as nervous as a cat, playing a part which might become real. "Charlie Jones," he said, with a friendly drawl, and held out a hand.

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"Tommy Thompson," I said, and grasped it. "Glad ter know you, Tarmy," he said. "You ain't goin' ter war in those pants? Gee, they're swell pants!" "They'll not be like this long," I said. "I was in a hurry." "I gotta spare pair," said Charlie Jones. "You're welcome. " The commander, joined by a lieutenant-commander and two lieutenants, eyed us dubiously. The tall, pale man introduced himself with an air of assurance which dispersed some of the commander's worries. "Gordon Walker, Christian Science Monitor. Glad to know you, Commander." The commander asked to see our orders. "I suppose they're O.K.," he said. He was clearly a man with a load on his shoulders, and worry had reduced him to indecision. He saw us as a complication. The lieutenant-commander was more cheerful, though cautious. They were both men in their forties and gave the impression that they would be happier growing tomatoes than flying flying-boats on the fringe of war- with an audience. Possibly they had even settled down growing tomatoes before this happened. A lot of people had settled down. Even for a day it is restful, and tomorrow is always another day. "We take off in half an hour. Best get some chow," decided the commander. And we trailed off after him. But there was the strong feeling that this commander didn't like the job a bit, and was somehow suspicious of us all, wishing he could find a good reason to leave us. "Take it easy, feller," said Gordon Walker out of the side of his mouth. "The old man's windy about something." "As a kite," hissed Charlie Jones. "Jeez ! " It was an agonising half-hour straight out of Hemingway, new style, especially the talk. I had the feeling that I was the doubtful starter, but perhaps we all felt that any one of us might be out. It was not until we were all ready to embark that the commander decided that he had enough load, and that I should travel in the second aircraft with the two lieutenants. They were quiet young men. They introduced themselves soberly, as though they meant it. "Eckert," said one of them. "Hill," said the other.

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"Glad to know you, Mr. Thompson. Glad to have you with us." This was the first piece of normal talk I had heard all day, and it made me feel at home. I watched the P.B.M. take its long run through the water and rise slowly into the blue with my new colleagues. "We'll be there first," said Hill, handing me a bunch of maps to leave his hands free to signal Eckert, lining up the aircraft. "We've twenty knots on her." It was a happy journey, revealing in the first hour all the splendour of Fuji Yama in a long, slow view which impressed the perfect cone of the mountain and the bold and lovely sweep of the slopes, falling from snow to green scrub, to fertile valley, as a fabled god might rise above the earth. We flew at 8,000 feet, leaving Fuji at last away to starboard as we sought the passes through the cumulus. Because I was the only passenger, I sat in the navigator's seat and traded Player's for Lucky's with the wireless operator, who said it 'sure took him back to Suffolk' and did I know Suffolk? There was time to learn some of the geography of Japan from the charts, for I was barely aware of the four main islands. We flew over the length of the main isle of Honshu to Itazuke, the air base on the northern coast of Kyushu. And even this was enough to give me an idea of the feeding problems of Japan, for the mountains forced the intense cultivation of every cranny, and the lesser hillsides seemed beautifully terraced from the air. Britain, unable to feed more than a possible 60 per cent of its people, is rich compared with these crowded islands. But it was not until we were in the air that I knew where we were going, and why, and that this three-and-a-half- to four-hour flight was the first easy leg of a journey which should land us on the waters of Inchon under the guns of the United Nations fleet within twenty-four hours of the landing by United States marines. Three hours out we overhauled the commander's P.B.M. and made a dry landing on wheels at Itazuke. The journey had not allayed the fears of my colleagues. The 'Old Man' would have to be carefully handled, and he had the power to ditch us all if he wished. Eckert and Hill, however, with

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whom I had become on the friendliest terms, promised to take me unless expressly forbidden, which was unlikely. We all dined together in the Officers' Club, keeping very much to ourselves, for relations between the arms of the services are remarkably bad, revealing intense bitterness at times, and we listened patiently to the commander. I had had already a quiet drink with him and had ·learned details of the Inchon operation. This, he said, was the biggest thing since Okinawa, and it had not occurred to him that I did not know at least as much as he did. Airmen flying into Itazuke from the area brought further scraps of news. The marines had landed without difficulty other than from the natural conditions. It was none the less a daring feat made difficult by the phenomenal tides of thirty-two feet. The typhoon which had diverted the Argonaut to Okinawa had also threatened the whole operation, which was confined to four possible days each month. While the young army airmen crowding the club roared their rival heroic songs at each other, and the Japanese dance band played lush blue music between times, the experienced Gordon Walker nursed the commander patiently while I filled the difficult role of a kind of arbitrator appealed to by both sides. There were four P.B.M.s allotted for the courier service. No seaplane had landed at Inchon before, and there were obvious difficulties with the tides in narrow waters crowded with shipping. They had budgeted to lose two out of the four aircraft, for these P.B.M.s with their deep wheel cavities were difficult to handle on choppy water. As the commander described it, we were about to fly into the jaws of death, and he would not take the responsibility on the first flight. In fact the danger to life was almost negligible, but the commander was immovable, and it was important not to play down the risks too much and offend him. It was decided that the lieutenant-commander should fly in with his air crew on the first mission, and, if successful, we should all go in the second aircraft with Eckert and Hill. When it was certain that there was no way round this, we relaxed, praying that no straggling correspondents would

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turn up. It was roughly at this moment that the redoubtable Alan Whicker made his entry, collapsed into an armchair, ordered a large Tom Collins. and told us glowingly of his abortive attempts to get in first. He had rushed off to Ashiya. an air base serving Taegu. and had then come on down by train, a journey. it seemed, not without its delectable moments. Fortunately Alan was by way of being a bosom pal of Gordon Walker, and we felt that we should have to make the best of the menace of his arrival. From this moment until the take-off everyone tried to doublecross everyone else and shrewd questions and leads were bandied about constantly in order to trick a saboteur into an unwise disclosure of subversive activity. I extricated a private oath from Eckert and Hill that. whatever happened, I should go. I was also running about level with Gordon Walker in the commander's good books. having helped him surreptitiously with a large truck he had managed to borrow. But one could never be sure what wild young characters like Charlie Jones might be up to, or what dark hidden clues old Jack Percival might follow in his mysterious way. He was nowhere to be seen. As for Alan. the obvious thing was not to let him out of sight. At midnight I realised that I had the facts and a certain amount of colour on the Inchon landing. I was able to check with a pilot on the last available details. and I had at least 'seen' the typhoon. named 'Kesia', and the aircraft-carrier H.M.S. Triumph pounding through the seas to her station. Silently I slid to a telephone on the wall of a passageway in the sleeping quarters. Telephones are unpredictable things: they may link you to the ends of the earth or merely to the local fire station or internal switchboard. This one was magic. "Tokyo." I asked. "Tokyo." said a voice. I gave the mystic number and there was the pleasing voice of George Foister. "Can you take two hundred words?" "So soon." said George. "Shoot. " So within six days of leaving London I led the paper on the Inchon landing ahead of everyone else. which was a piece of luck for an old Suffolk yokel as completely out of the picture as anyone has ever been.

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After that there was no reason not to enjoy the lavish entertainment provided for young airmen so far from home. Al Jolson was making a personal appearance in the cinema, a conjurer on the dance floor of the Officers' Club was firstclass, the chap who cut people out of black paper in time to the music was remarkable, and the nine-tenths-naked Japanese dancing girls, small as they were, proved that their lovely limbs and all the curves were to scale. Perhaps it was not surprising that at three in the morning, in response to an urgent ringing of the telephone outside my room, I forgot that I was in a top bunk and took a dive onto the concrete floor. It was my first and only 'wound', and it pains me yet. I must have had the telephone on my conscience.

Seoul, under the north hill.

The Capitol above the roofs of Seoul.

Men of the Australian Battalion under the tail of a flying box car before embarking. C.O. Australian Battalion in contact with his leading company in action north of Pakchon.

CHAPTER THREE INCHON I

THE COURIER returned from its m1ss1on having blazed the trail without incident. The water had been calm, the landing perfect. He could have taken us all without any trouble at all, said the lieutenant-commander, and raised a groan. We took off with Eckert and Hill on Sunday morning, 17th September, using up the last yard of the runway with the heavy old amphibian, so that Jack Percival, who had materialised at the last moment, a remarkable sight in his round sun hat, began to flap his arms like wings. But we were up safely, circling over the sea, and with four or five hours of sky ahead. It was, unexpectedly, a luxury trip. A magnificent luncheon of cold chicken, salad, ice-cream, fruit juice and coffee was served, and afterwards there were four bunks in which the four who wished to sleep slept. This was the first and last time I knew any comfort on a naval or military aircraft for five months. We had been joined by another American news photographer, a quiet, tough-looking individual of few words, and weighing every ounce of 200 pounds. Seeing that I had nothing to read and that I was not of the sleepers, he casually tore his paperbacked book in two pieces and gave one to me. It was the last half of a collection of de Maupassant's short stories, and I doubt whether there could be anything more valuable to a journalist than to read de Maupassant at such a time. Certainly I should need all the de Maupassant I could get. Presently, when all were sleeping, I joined the pilots forward, putting on the navigator's headphones to keep myself in touch with things. We were not taking chances at cutting off corners, and flew the dog leg through the Cheju Channel before turning c

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north above the islands of the Yellow Sea. Eight thousand feet was our ceiling, and 150 knots our speed. Unarmed, we were a sitting bird if the enemy had anything at all in the way of a gun, or an aircraft, which he probably had not. Nevertheless, there could be no virtue in inviting the one shot in a million for the sake of an unimportant hour. So we held our course twenty to thirty miles off shore and the radar ray swung its freckled silver line untroubled round the mysterious brown surface of its globe upon which any object untoward would show up. It is a rugged coast line, almost as fragmented as Norway, though lacking the wonderful waterways which make of Norway a constant revelation of delight. From a sea point of view it is a terrible coast to navigate, and there are not more than three possible landing points, certainly not on the scale of this operation, including Inchon and Chinnampo. But even had the enemy known of the venture there was little or nothing he could have done about it. The North Korean army, apart from a handful of garrison troops, was fully committed on the Naktong, and had seemed within a touch of victory a week earlier. That fact was the true measure of the daring of the Inchon plan. Otherwise, without air, sea or land power to fear, it was certain to succeed. But there would be time enough to worry about the war, and to attempt to sift the grains of truth from the glorious adjectives and heroic phrases which were already coupling the Inchon landing with the greatest amphibious operations of all time. A sentence from the official report of the Dieppe raid stirred in my mind, so that I felt tears hot behind my eyes-'with a courage terrible to see the Marines went in to land... .' On that day, terrible, yet with its mead of glory, more men had died under the murderous cross-fire of the German heavy machine guns than the American losses in all the Korean war. I knew how terrifying it could be to find oneself with such a sentence truly presenting itself, for there had been two occasions in my life when this had happened to me. So that now, flying over the untroubled sea and the rugged rocks which grew out of it, I felt my heart quicken to the

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knowledge of battle. Back in the main cabin young Charlie Jones was talking tough, his short clipped phrases thick with excrement and fornication. "Aw muck," said young Charlie. "The on'y festerin' place ter be is in ther festerin' front landin' craft. That's festerin' well livin' .... Muck!" He relapsed into long brooding silences. Gordon said: "Gene'll be 0.K., Charlie. Take it easy." But young Charlie Jones, for all anyone knows, may have had a link with his twin brother disturbing him inside, for he was wound up, and the heroic words mixed in with the filth tumbled from his mouth almost as if he were under an anaesthetic. Beneath us lay the wide, sheltered waterway of the Inchon approaches, island- and land-encircled, yet dangerously deceptive with its shoals and sand banks and its immense tidal rise and fall. It looked as peaceful in the sunshine as a regatta in the Solent. The great ships of war, grey and beautiful at their moorings, a host of cargo vessels, and small craft bustling between the big ships and the smoking ruin of all that was left of the port of Inchon. Now and then puffs of smoke came softly from the muzzles of naval guns, waving lazily like huge indolent fingers in their turrets. We circled carefully and came in to land, feeling the blastor so it seemed-of the eight-inch guns of the U.S. heavy cruiser Rochester, and all of a sudden full throttle and up again to clear a ship by feet, and circle again, for at the last moment a small craft had shown up right in our path. On the second round we landed safely. The water was short of choppy, but sufficiently unlike a lake to roar into the wheel cavities, but not too much, for we remained easily afloat. Charlie was at the open door of the aircraft as a boat came alongside from the command ship. "Gene! " he yelled. "Gene! " and then dissolved into sobs, leaping into the boat. Gene, his twin brother, had been hit in the chest by a piece of mortar bomb. It was serious. One of the very few casualties of the whole operation, but a very likely thing to happen in the leading landing craft.

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"Poor little bastard," said the large quiet news photographer. They were almost his first words. I don't remember ever meeting him again, but I think he would take good pictures, even on a Dieppe raid, or the Flushing assault, for he was not under the pressing urgency to 'prove' something or other, to himself or to anyone else. Eckert and Hill waved to me from the cockpit, and we climbed the gangway to the inhospitable decks of the command ship, the McKinley, to try and find a space for ourselves and discover the 'form'. II

There was no welcome aboard the McKinley. The wardroom was overcrowded with correspondents, typewriters clacking away on knees and every available table corner, mattresses on the floor. One side of the large room was kept clear for officers. A loudspeaker blared incessantly. Men huddled in groups talking; others, sprawling, slept. The atmosphere was far from happy. The naval captain, P.I.O. in charge of arrangements for correspondents and communications, didn't take his feet off his desk, and he didn't look up from his paper when Alan and I went in to make ourselves known. The man grunted, waved one hand in acknowledgment that he had heard, and we walked out again. A junior officer undertook to find us some sort of sleeping place in one of the alleyways. The officer handling the news informed us that the 'copy was movin' very slow' when it moved at all. "Say," he said, "operational stuff comes first on a do like this. " We could expect at least five hours' delay if we were lucky. In fact the copy stacked up to the point where it was useless to send it at all, and it went 'over the wall'. The prospect was about as unpleasing as it could be. In fact it was worse, for we were to discover that the four newsagency chiefs, the personal guests of General MacArthur aboard the ship, had special facilities and telephones direct to Tokyo. In short, the agencies would scoop the pool. There wasn't a single face I knew among the dozens of correspondents in the wardroom. All the fast-war men had

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become film or radio critics or had found comfortable niches for themselves. For 90 per cent of those present it was the first experience of war, and it explained some of the wild heroic adjectives used to describe what was nothing more than an extremely well-organised 'peacetime' manreuvre. The immense fire power and air resources blotted out Inchon, and it was surprising that even a handful of Koreans stayed to fire a carbine or a mortar. All bullets coming in the wrong direction are an unpleasant experience, but they do not make great battles. I joined the most mature-looking group of men and listened, piecing the story together as far as it had gone. Some had been on the main landing. There had been a brief fight on the tiny island of Woldimo which covered the approaches to the mainland, and here thirty or forty enemy had survived the immense bombardment from sea and air to fire upon the landing party, which had rapidly overwhelmed them. For the rest the marines were virtually unopposed. Seoul was garrisoned by students, a few semi-civilians pressed into service, and a small hard core of communists. It is doubtful whether there could be as many as 10,000 defenders, armed mainly with carbines, a few mortars, and a score of tanks. Against this the Americans landed two full divisions and a total of more than 75,000 men, huge quantities of materials, munitions, artillery and tanks supported by a vast air force, unchallenged from air or ground, and the guns of a powerful fleet able to cover the expedition right into the city of Seoul itself. It seemed to us, considering these things, that unless the Chinese ·became scared and decided to intervene-and we all thought they wouldn't-the war might be over in a week south of the 38th Parallel. But for such a result to be possible the Americans would have had to move very fast, and instead they moved very slow. The first news reports appeared to bear little relationship to the facts. Without censorship, and without well-conducted military briefings by competent well-informed officers, there was only one way to report and that was to describe the

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evidence of one's eyes. This has always been the best way in war. and indeed in almost anything else. In this war I think that there was no other honest way. Towards evening we had the definite news that a young airman had discovered a wonderful target and had described his attack upon it with great enthusiasm. He had bombed Taegu, with special attention to the war correspondents' billet, mistaking it for somewhere else. He was about thirty miles off course, and it gave us a rather sour pleasure. No one was hurt. Six days later, on 23rd September, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were bombed by mistake, and were immediately counter-attacked by the enemy. Despite their dead and wounded this company, mainly of National Service men, held their hilltop, losing their company commander, Major Muir. It was the best and worst story we heard or saw on all the road to Seoul.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE INCHON BRIDGEHEAD THE outset it was an unhappy story, and the misery of it squatted on the shoulders of each one of us, quelling our spirits. Slowly, day by day, the tragedy unfolded as death and destruction inexorably consumed Korea and its people, and the fears of one day became the knowledge of the next. Handfuls of peasants defied the immense weight of modern arms with a few rifles and carbines and a hopeless courage which would not-or could not-know defeat. The shots of the doomed came from the rice paddies and the shattered ruins of the few concrete buildings, and brought down upon themselves and all the inhabitants the appalling horror of jellied petrol bombs and the devastation of rockets and heavy artillery. Slowly the American troops advanced through the smoking rubble, pausing until the opposition was crushed under the air strikes and the bombardment. Civilians died in hundreds, and presently in thousands, and the enemy, mostly unrecognisable and ununiformed, was rounded up and stripped. Most of the war correspondents carried arms, and it seemed that every man's dearest wish was to kill a Korean. "Today," said many of them, as they nursed their weapons, "I'll get me a gook." There is something inhuman about the word, but it could not rob the slain or the living of their human kinship, nor the naked processions of prisoners, with their hands folded upon their heads- as though they might conceal weapons even in their bodies-of an uncouth and tragic dignity. Under the pall of dust at the roadsides the people waited, watching the immense concourse of men and vehicles, the old men squatting on the polished wooden dais within the FROM

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shelter of their walls, inscrutable, stroking the thin wisps of their beards, while hundreds walked with their bundles on their heads and their children on their backs, threatened by the torrent of machines crowding the narrow ways. Here and there a child waved a flag or cried a welcome. Hastily painted signs and banners bade 'Welcome to the U.S. Army', and in this atmosphere of death, destruction and homelessness which had beset these people for a thousand years, but never more remorselessly than now, we strove for inspiration, for what to say, and how to say it. I went ashore with Bernard Forbes of the B.B.C. to embark upon this road which might lead to utter disillusion, and which was to yield neither honour nor glory, and which lacked even those compensations which had ennobled the broad span of war. Already a dozen new friendships were springing up with the warmth and speed which always occurs under difficult conditions and a community of interests. That magnificent evergreen warhorse, Ward Price, who had reported a Balkan war when I had been six years old, could give me the twenty years I could give to almost everyone else. And among the newcomers to this kind of business there were many young men of obvious quality to offset the gun-bearers and the gookgetters. At intervals of fifteen minutes the loudspeakers announced shore boats, and Bernard and I found ourselves taking the salt spray forward in an early boat. The morning air was rich and stimulating, and a cloudless sky spread an aura of peace over the sheltered, islanded harbour, crowded with shipping. A slight breeze ruffled the waters of the narrow channel, so that the flat-bottomed landing craft smacked the wavelets to drench all those in the body of the boat. The tide was receding fast, to reveal sandbanks glistening in the sun and the debris of old wrecked vessels. One fl.at-bottomed landing craft had grounded solidly on the flat bottom of a twin vessel which had turned turtle and was imprisoned in the sand. Even full tide gave insufficient water to refloat the vessel which perched so neatly and which seemed to float most oddly when the under vessel was hidden. Beside the wharf a cargo ship had run her bows

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far up onto the ramp and lay with her hull hard down in the mud. But these were the only visible casualties of the landing as we picked our way carefully over the broken planks of the slippery wooden ramp to dry land. We walked together, almost casually, into the smouldering ruin of Inchon from which the blue and grey smoke rose lazily to the grasp of the wind. Children, standing in small groups, eyed us with a kind of bland interest and awareness, knowing in their blood all the horrors which in the terrible past of their race came always in the wake of war, and now came in the van. The destruction of the buildings filled me with a sense of pity I had not known previously in the face of destruction. For the fact that such a port and buildings had existed here at the ends of the earth aroused feelings of wonder and surprise, born of a native insularity. And it was as if the slow labour of a child had been brutally smashed to the ground. Already men and women grovelled in the rubble of ruined homes, while the fabulous wealth of the new world piled up in vast mounds in the cleared spaces, and the trucks laden with ammunition and food roared over the broken roads, already crumbling to white powder. There was a strange peace at the heart of Inchon on this bright morning, for the war had done its worst with it, leaving it hollow and burned out and pungent with the odours of charred wood and humanity. A few weeks earlier my knowledge of Korea began with the Russo-Japanese War, but now I knew that it was more than one thousand years since the Chinese had come this way, to this land named so hopefully Kao-Kou-Li, Koli, Korea, the land of 'Morning Calm', called later Choson and by the Japanese Chosen, when at last the mighty power of China had waned, her great body torn by wolves of west and east, and Russia and Japan fought for domination of the land of Morning Calm. Nevertheless, the thought and the law of China is woven into the very texture of Korea, not only in the distant past, as the law of Rome is woven into Britain, but through all the centuries.

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Yet nothing in all this long and terrible history could match today in horror. No infant peering with dark round eyes from the wrappings at its mother's back through all the centuries had known the terror these infant eyes now knew, the terror of death without discrimination, death without courage, distributed like rain to fall alike upon the innocent and the guilty, released from afar off. Impersonal, yet shockingly personal. No longer did men or women or children perish by the sword, neither did the slayers confront the slain, knowing in the giving of death and its acceptance something human. At least responsibility. Now in the twentieth century as it moves towards sanity or mad despair the slayer needs merely to touch a button, and death is on the wing, blindly, blotting out the remote, the unknown people, holocausts of death, veritable mass-productions of death, spreading an abysmal desolation over whole communities and the fertile body of the earth. Yet of all those who pressed these buttons few might dare to put to death even one woman or child by the sword. I was already profoundly shocked. At ltazuke I had listened in silence to the tales of young airmen proud in their missions of death and the fires they lit by night and day, unopposed in the clear skies. And there was a note, perhaps of defiance, in the brave hand-outs of action which bore but little relation to the facts. In this mood many of us, full of misgivings to which we did not give a name, followed the march of events. There was no guide to war. No signs. No clear pattern of advance save in the tracks of the wheels. The thing pressed on, and we pressed on in its wake by any means available, riding on whatever truck or vehicle might answer a signal, and climbing swiftly to balance on its packing-cases, or make for ourselves some place among the bodies of the dead. On a low hill top within a girdle of hills a colonel said: "There was nothing at the landing. I saw one dead. And there's nothing much now. A few snipers." His face had the wrinkled look of an apple overlong in the loft, and his eyes were ringed with dust and weariness. But there was something indomitable and deeply Scornful in the

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eyes and in the set of the jaw of this colonel. Rifle fire without pattern crackled in the small amphitheatre of the hills, and in the midst of his quiet words to me he bellowed to his men: "Stop that, you goddam sons of bitches. If there's enemy go get 'em." There was a kind of repressed fury in his voice, for his men were undisciplined, and almost untrained, and there was no time now to do anything about it. Overhead the shells made their invisible sibilant flutter in the sky. The crackle of rifle fire had hushed, and a party of marines scrambled over the scrub-covered hill to hurl grenades into the deep caverns of the many old iron workings which might, and did, afford admirable cover to snipers. And on the crests of the hills marines idled negligently against the skyline watching the distant shell bursts of their naval guns. The colonel showed me the pattern of war on his maps. His regiment' was on the centre line, the main road to Seoul. On his left a regiment was advancing warily to capture the airfield of Kimpo and to consolidate up to the Han River. On his right the third regiment was well advanced, meeting nothing so far as he knew. There was no organised opposition, but the sniping could be bad for the nerves. A sortie of half a dozen tanks down the main road had been smashed instantly by the enormous weight of metal and bombs brought to bear immediately upon them, and now the tanks of the Americans roared in their immense clouds of dust towards the Han. The burned-out carcases of the North Korean tanks lay with the charred remains of their crews at the roadside. Here and there a Korean body stared sightless at the untroubled sky from the sodden verges of the rice paddies or lay head buried in the mud. There were not a dozen bodies in ten miles on the main axis. From Inchon the coastal plain rose swiftly to low rounded foothills, rising again in sudden cones and ridges to the banks of the Han River, a broad barrier between the invaders and Seoul, capital of South Korea and city of more than one million souls. Rail and road bridges spanned the river from the industrial suburb of Yongdung-po. ' Approximately equivalent to a British brigade.

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With men and materials coming ashore as fast as the brilliant large-scale organisational genius of the Americans could bring them, there was nothing to stop the rapid expansion of the bridgehead. Ahead of the troops, wave upon wave of aircraft swooped to bomb, machine-gun and rocket the villages, and to smash Yongdung-po to rubble. Batteries of 105-mm. artillery moving up into position added their shells to the weight of attack in a kind of wild and outrageous profligacy. And behind all this the marines moved forward, at times astounded that any mortal survived to fire upon them, with an understandably poor aim, before dying riddled with scores of bullets from automatic weapons spouting a kind of diarrhoea of death. Mostly the marines were young men, their heads closecli pped, and with three or four days' stubble on their faces. They moved warily along the roads, waiting patiently for the bombs and artillery to clear the line ahead while they exchanged brief phrases of obscenity, some describing how they had got a 'Gook', and others how they proposed to get a 'Gook': "I let him have it in de festerin' guts. Den in de festerin' haid. Festerin' haid split like a melon. Aw muck! " In some such phrase as this I heard a young man describing his kill, as a Korean had come walking out of a rice paddy, unarmed, probably a civilian. The words gave me an indelible impression of the murderous properties of an automatic weapon, and of this Korean head splitting open. Mostly the marines seemed good-natured and good-tempered, and less murderous the farther forward one went. But they never spoke of the enemy as though they were people, but as one might speak of apes. If they remarked a dead Korean body of whatever sex, uniformed or ununiformed, it was simply 'dead Gook' or 'good Gook'. I don't think it ever occurred to them that these Koreans were men, women and children with homes, loves, hates, aspirations, and often very great courage. "We gotta fight like this," they told me. "It saves lives, 'n we got the stuff. " For three days we pursued the advance, returning each night to the unwelcoming wardroom and the alleyways of the McKinley. They were days of glorious sunshine, marred by

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ever-increasing clouds of dust which now hid the world under a yellow pall. But the nights were cold, and the need to catch a ship-going craft before dusk shortened our days and lengthened the nights interminably. There was nothing to drink except coffee, and I don't remember any kind of game. We wrote our stuff and hoped for the best, and speculated on the outcome. An electrical engineer took me to his cabin and gave me a package of tea done up in small paper bags the size of ravioli. Ward Price, Louis Heren, Henri Turenne, Georgie Herman, Bernie Kaplan and five or six others became my very good friends for much longer than the war. We went ashore, as a rule, together, and, though the difficulties of hitch-hiking usually forced us to split up, we invariably found ourselves congregated on the same hill-top or in the same hollow, seeing the same dismal phase of advance. The absence, for the most part, of anything in the nature of shot and shell corning our way enabled us, for hours at a time as we hiked on the byways in search of flanking troops, to forget the war. The right flank was comparatively free of traffic in the first forty-eight hours, and the people were still able to watch the world go by without swathing their faces against the dust. The lovely terraced hillsides, and the cultivated patches of green vegetables in the hollows, glowed in the sunshine with the brilliant scarlet of the ripe pimentos in the midst of the green and grey foliage. And apples abounded; large, rich, rosy-skinned apples, sweet and juicy, and a delight as we walked, deep in talk of Proust, Montaigne, Verlaine and Gide on the part of Henri Turenne and Georgie Herman, of music and painting, and the abiding things, to which Bernie Kaplan and I contributed our less erudite but often forceful opinions. For my tastes in all these things, and in life, are emotional rather than intellectual. On this country road on the second day there was an air of peace, imbued with a strange piquancy. A marine regiment had bounded ahead about ten miles without opposition of any kind, real or suspected, and had left a tract of countryside unhurt and in peace behind it in the unpredictable fortunes of war. Here and there villages lay under the twisted shapes of the fir trees in the hollows of the hills like willow-pattern plates,

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and we had glimpses of peaceful living, almost incongruous, of people sitting cross-legged on the polished wooden platforms raised a foot or two above the ground within their homes, where they sat by day and slept by night, warmed by the fires of the cooking ovens which led beneath the floor and are, I believe, the first form of central heating. Some of these villages seemed to us of pure enchantment, the tiles of the roofs upcurled at eaves and corners like the toes of oriental slippers, while the poorer cottages lay under heavy grey thatches which seemed to embrace them. And in these villages, too, the women wore bright colours, crimson and the pale pink of water melon flesh, and vivid emerald green, their bodies wrapped tightly to give them a tubular appearance, while mothers suckled their young from full breasts swinging free beneath a kind of apron, giving them a most curious appearance. So on this day we walked for more than an hour, until a vehicle overtook us and lifted us to the forward troops under the high escarpment of a sharp ridge, which overlooked all the plain to the misty shape of Seoul, tinged faintly blue and pink under the great rugged barrier of the mountains eastward. We lay together on the ridge of the hills, watching the. aircraft diving with their rockets, and the bursts of the shells from the ships at Inchon. Yet it was a scene of peace. The smoke rose from the burned-out villages as it might have risen from the fires of autumn. And those villages, which had until now escaped, seemed like fairy circles of grey mushrooms under the tall poplars which spaced the broad valley plain. Far beneath we could see the peasants working placidly, harvesting the tall ripe sorghum, unmindful of the war which was about to envelop them. It was a scene both rich and beautiful, for the ripening rice and green crops promised a harvest which was not to be fulfilled. In the early hours of the following day the airfield of Kimpo was captured, and when I came this way again an infantry division had moved up to take over from the marines and had fanned out south and east. The brief respite had ended in death. The bright colours were gone from field and female under the dust pall. No longer the scarlet of the pimentos; no

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longer the vivid green and crimson of silken clothes. Now the villages smouldered in the hollows, and the old men sat at the roadsides with the knowledge that the deluge of war, which had seemed for a moment to have passed them by, might now overwhelm them. Only the babes sucking at the heavy breasts protruding beneath the short aprons which veiled their mother's chests, and those older children waving flags and chewing the gum of their liberators, were without distress.

CHAPTER FIVE

ACROSS THE HAN RIVER AT KIMPO the marines encountered the first enemy attempt at organised opposition. When Alan Whicker and I hitch-hiked onto the field at about nine in the morning we counted eighteen North Korean bodies distributed round the perimeter as testimony. The young major in command said there had been three or four counter-attacks during the early hours. the North Koreans screaming 'Banzai' to put some heart into themselves or fear into their foes, or both. They had been easily dispersed, and had not exceeded company strength. The imposing block of the airport buildings was reduced to a shell, but some hundreds of army huts with concrete or wooden floors and with semi-circular tin roofs, erected some months earlier by the Americans themselves. were mostly undamaged. The two-thousand-yard main runway was in good usable condition, and we counted six burned-out enemy fighters round the ground, and two Yaks, seeming intact. in the hangars. The field had been of little use to the Koreans, but was of immense importance to the Americans. Within the hour Major-General Field Harris, commanding the first Marine Air Wing, landed with his staff by helicopter in time to meet the pilot of a naval Corsair fighter forced down conveniently at this time and place and the first American aircraft to use the field. Within a week Kimpo became one of the busiest airports in the Far East, and within a month reputedly the busiest in the world. For us it meant the end of the McKinley, and a chance to keep closer to our work. The 1st Marine Division had established its headquarters on a small housing estate of American construction within two miles of the airfield, and between these two points Alan and I decided to seek shelter and communications, and a clearer picture of events. The long 48

Taegu- the cattle market (p. 105).

Washing clothes in the gutters of Taegu (p. 105).

Col. Billy Harris, Yesong river (p. 121). The bridge, a formidable-looking object (p. 121).

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hitch-hike to and from the ship, now twenty miles in the rear, and with the traffic fanning out to ever-increasing destinations, had become inconsistent with keeping close touch with forward troops. Some such thoughts were in our minds as we hiked in a convenient jeep over the four thousand yards between the airfield and the Han River. Here we climbed a steep cone-like hill from which we could look with a sense of thrill to the hilly suburbs of Seoul and command a long stretch of the broad river to the road and rail bridges joining the smoking ruin of Yongdung-po to the capital. Seoul lay in a vast bowl, and with the river at its front and the rugged hills guarding it in the rear and on the flanks it would be a formidable proposition to assault in the face of a determined enemy. Amphibious tracked vehicles called amtracks, very like the 'buffaloes' of the Second World War, and in which we had crossed the Scheidt and the Rhine and careered over the huge expanse of the floods north of Cleves, were moving up under cover of the hills ready for an assault crossing on the left flank. If the marines moved fast they would be able to cut the main supply route into the city from the north. Meanwhile the marines consolidated swiftly, but without breadth, to the river bank. By keeping to the roads, and with a disinclination to walk (though the marines, I was to discover, were almost the only U.S. troops to walk at all), the ground could not be said to be secured, for there was always the probability that the enemy, lying low on hill-tops and in rice paddies, or even abandoning the business of war for day-time farming and other activities of peasantry, were still in the rear, and able to harry the flanks or shoot up lone drivers on the lines of communication. In fact, the sniping was remarkably slight in view of the possibilities. Immediately away from the unpleasant atmosphere and intolerable communications position of the McKinley, our work became more satisfying and a great deal more uncomfortable. The 1st Marine Division were able to give a clear picture of the action, and were able also to offer food and shelter of a kind to any who cared to take advantage of it. On the right flank the 7th Infantry Division were making good progress, D

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and on the centre line the marines were at the approaches to Yongdung-po. from which black clouds of smoke rose like huge funeral pyres. To find all this out meant tireless hitch-hiking. sometimes walking unhappily over deserted stretches of road. confronting the inscrutable bent backs of peasants stooping in the midst of the rice paddies. or staring into their equally inscrutable faces. and knowing that every man who stooped might straighten up with a gun in his hand. And sometimes did. It was long after dusk when we made our way back to the McKinley for the last time to find that the heads of the news agencies, with their special access to General McArthur. had already 'captured Kimpo' on the day before. somewhat in advance of the deed. There was also the depressing news that three more war correspondents had been gravely injured riding in a jeep that morning. They didn't know what had hit them. but the terrific concussion which had hurled the vehicle off the road probably meant that they had been cuffed by the back end of a tank. and flicked to the borders of oblivion. Lachie Macdonald, of the Daily Mail, one of the quietest and gentlest of men, was out of the war suffering from severe wounds and concussion which might have terrible results. The others would be patched up. Meanwhile two more war correspondents had been killed flying back to Japan to send their stories. It was on this night that my real friendship began with Ward Price. Lying on his bunk, he could hear the agency men telephoning to Tokyo while the rest of us faced frustration. delay. and even the jettisoning of our work. His complaint-the evidence of his ears- had been cynically denied by the captain. Public Information Officer. Next morning I left the McKinley with my belongings and hiked to Kimpo. Already the field was filling up with a variety of aircraft. Naval Corsairs flew in and out with regularity. C 46s and 47s. dreaded by correspondents even more than C 54s. for the accidents were many and terrible, were drawn up on the broad expanse fronting the shell of the main building. and by evening the first of the C 1l9s. the huge twin-tailed and bulbous-bellied flying box cars, had already landed safely with their loads of ammunition, clothing, food and bombs.

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Within the cavernous bodies of these strange. unwieldy-looking aircraft immense loads of men and materials could be stowed. With their twin tails vibrating violently before take-off. when the engines were revved up. they made us realise that another hazard had added itself to the job. In fact the C 119s proved among the most reliable freight-carrying aircraft in the world; but they don't look it. Pilots and crews kicking their heels round the field thought that there would be an Air Force P.I.0. established by nightfall. and perhaps we could not do better than to make Kimpo our base and hand our stories to the pilots bound for Japan. The P.LO at Ashiya air base. from which most of the supplies were shipped. was said to be reliable. and would send on the stuff by teletype to Tokyo. We were nine hours ahead of Britain, and with luck a story flown out of Kimpo by six in the evening might reasonably reach London by midnight-midnight being fifteen hours away. Allowing four hours for the flight, four hours for delay in clearing from Ashiya, and three hours from Tokyo. it seemed a fair margin, and I decided to try it. Then without wasting any more time I stole silently away. hopped an amtrack and crossed the Han River in the wake of the marine assault crossing. Henri Turenne had had the same idea. and together we pursued the marines, and presumably the enemy, across the rice paddies and into the hills covering the approaches to Seoul. But the enemy, whose total strength. consisting mainly of hastily enlisted students. was now estimated at between 3,000 and 10.000, could not afford to do more than skirmish, enfilading the road-bound columns whenever and wherever the hills offered opportunity. and harrying the advancing army as best it might in order to buy time for a last stand in Seoul. A few resolute men carefully placed on the steep scrub-covered slopes were able to hinder the marines out of all proportion to their numbers and despite their very poor marksmanship. The marines, therefore, advanced in a series of fits and starts, alternating over-caution whenever fired upon with overoptimism when they weren't, to seize the high ground north of the city and force the enemy to concentrate a vital portion of the garrison on that flank.

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The peace of the countryside in the wake of the advance was misleading, for there is always a vacuum until the second wave of troops fills it in, and we soon discovered that in many ways this war was a dangerous occupation, not only for civilians, but for those who shuttled back and forth from front to rear about their daily tasks. South Korean troops, caparisoned in the varied equipment of the United States Army, scurried about under the United Nations flag rounding up 'pockets of enemy' with terrific zest, winkling frightened men out of the fl.at rice paddies, dragging peasants out of their homes, all in the long white 'underwear' which seemed to be the normal garb, and bringing them in to join the growing throngs of prisoners, similarly clad. Odd shots were always flying about from many directions. Many peasants, anxious to escape, hastened to lead the South Koreans to enemy 'hide-outs', while a small boy earned himself 'adoption' as a kind of pet by calling upon a group of terrified peasants to come out of the house in which they were hiding and triumphantly leading the dejected herd to their captors. Presently all these prisoners, whose uniforms and arms were said to have been hidden hurriedly, exchanged the anonymity of their white underclothes for the anonymity of nakedness, and in this fashion, with hands folded upon their heads, their guards harried them to the river front on the road to the Inchon cage. The tiny village of Haeng-ju, half hidden in a fold of the hills rising from the river bank and within one hundred yards of the 'assault crossing', smouldered peacefully, denuded of its inhabitants, and awaited a touch of the breeze to fan it to flames. A Korean in a frenzy leapt upon the back of a sergeant and buried his teeth in his neck. Another startled an army photographer by rising out of a rice paddy almost at his feet and surrendering, having mistaken the camera for some diabolical weapon. A dozen wounded marines lay on stretchers ready to be taken back across the river to the peace of the hospital ship Consolation in Inchon harbour, and with luck, home. I spoke to several of them, finding them quiet, shy boys, in the solitude

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their wounds had brought to them. They had been greeted with a few ragged bursts of fire, but, in their own words, the landing had been a 'cake walk'. I lit a cigarette for a sturdily built fair-haired youngster whose shattered shoulder and arm, monstrously swollen and the colour of pickled cabbage, promised severe pain, which he said he had not yet felt after the first blow. He had located the spot, he told me, from which persistent fire was coming and had sprayed the place with bullets. "I reckon I put sixty into it. I reckoned the bastard must be dead. " But the 'bastard' had been alive, lying low, saving his last remaining shot for the young American before he died. It was another confirmation-of which the Second World War provided many- of the destruction of the soldier and his morale by these automatic weapons and uncontrolled fire. These weapons seem to induce a form of jitters in their user, for the shooter's jaws are usually chewing on the gum as he sprays without aim, using ten, twenty, thirty or more shots when one would do. And it destroys bis calm. But there does not appear to be controlled fire in the American Army. No N.C.O. to give the fire orders, and the troops simply fire wildly with or without an enemy in sight, and according to their mood. They appear to be 'trigger happy' even far from the 'front', and a considerable danger. It was clear to most of us, and especially to the regimental commanders, that in the face of well-armed and well-trained troops the American army would disintegrate, and in the backs of our minds was a sense of urgency induced by the fear that the resurgent Chinese, feeling themselves once more a powerful nation, might come across the border to the aid of their ancient friends. As I cabled home, 'the graver menace implicit in these days' tempered our hopes that with the fall of Seoul the war might soon end. General Almond's statement: "We are the anvil. The United Nations troops fighting up from the south are the hammer. Soon the enemy will be pounded to pieces upon us," did not seem to be coming true. For the enemy in the south had broken contact, disappeared into the hills, and was not to be seen again for some months.

CHAPTER SIX

SLOWLY TOWARDS SEOUL I

IT BECAME clear that the marines were not going to be hurried. The advanced slowed to conform to the new technique of warfare, born of the immense productive and material might of their native land and designed to save the lives of soldiers. The business of troops was to follow in the path of desolation the long-range weapons should clear for them. It was our lot to watch this 'rehearsal' against an almost unarmed enemy, unable to challenge the aircraft in the skies, or to bring counter fire to bear upon the great mass of artillery. There was the preliminary softening of an area by bombardment, the cautious advance, the enemy small-arms fire, the halt, the close-support air strike, artillery, the cautious advance. And so on. It is far from certain whether these methods save the lives of soldiers, for their lack of soldierly training and road-bound habits lead them frequently into death traps. It is certain that it kills civilian men, women and children, indiscriminately and in great numbers, and destroys all that they have. Prisoners and friendly informers said that the defenders of Seoul had expected the assault on the city within fortyeight hours of the Inchon landing. The mass of inhabitants, interested predominantly in peace and personal survival, had hoped also that their fate would be decided swiftly. And indeed little had been in the way. Perhaps a dozen tanks, sallying forth from the ruins of Yongdung-po, to meet their end under the weight of artillery and air attack before they could confront their foes. Perhaps a dozen more, including those burned out by the roadside near to Inchon. A solitary gun of not more than 105-mm. calibre fired an hourly shell out of the city to lob harmlessly on some hillside or rice paddy. And as the pressure closed in, slowly and inexorably, a few 54

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defiant mortars hurled their bombs hopefully at the leading troops. But that was almost all. It was depressing, and the glowing adjectives were the sole prerogative of the favoured few closeted at intervals with the Supreme Commander. Once or twice Tokyo had tentatively captured Seoul, calculating the thing on a mileage basis and reckoning 'they must be there by now', and chancing it. But now the Tokyo brigade concentrated on the stiff fight of the marines battling hand to hand and toe to toe into the northern suburbs, while their 'buddies' fought grimly through the smoking ruin of Yongdung-po. The sight of the huge dust pall which now overhung the country from the Han River to the shores of Inchon must have been awe-inspiring to the grim defenders of the city who had not yet felt the weight of the bombardment and hoped to escape it. For it was announced that the city would be spared unless the Americans were forced to bombard, and even then they would confine themselves to 'military targets'. The hopes were short-lived. As the defenders continued to defend with the light weapons available to them, the air and artillery attacks encroached upon the city, and presently the great palls of smoke, shot through with flames by night, rose in ever-increasing volume beyond the Han. Pitiful troops of naked prisoners marched now continuously by the dusty roadsides, prodded by their truculent, unshaven guards, and watched in stoic silence by their fellow countrymen and women. Their lean brown bodies and upright bearing -compelled by the necessity to keep their hands upon their heads-contrasted with the fierce demeanour of their heavily armed and steel-helmeted escort, and it was impossible to watch these sombre processions without feelings of sorrow and shame. It became increasingly difficult to follow the fortunes of the marines across the Han, for it was at least a ten-hour journey there and back hitch-hiking in the unreliable amtracks which were almost the only form of transport. Soon after noon on the day of the crossing the river presented a peaceful appearance, and even of gaiety, with dukws, amtracks and a great variety

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of craft plying from shore to shore. On the Kimpo bank engineers were constructing mattresses of timber over the mud and beginning to build a ferry, entirely unhampered by conditions of war. The blue sky was empty of all save friendly aircraft, and no sound of enemy shot or shell disturbed the workers at their labours. Nevertheless it was a slow progress, for at this particular phase of operations the United States have a remarkable incapacity, which seems to get worse instead of better. Characteristically the first vehicle to use the ferry when it came into operation was a bull-dozer. Communications, however, were immediately established at Kimpo and a refreshingly obliging and energetic young Air Force P.1.0., Captain Mel Edwards, had flown in from Ashiya to get things going, and to do his best to make some kind of a camp for correspondents. There was the promise of blankets and perhaps- later on-camp beds, and any story ready by 6 p.m. was almost certain to reach the target of the morning paper. A score of correspondents had already dug themselves in, and their bed rolls and belongings filled one of the huts next to the main building. I explored Marine Division headquarters with Ward Price and discovered an unused house, borrowed some blankets from an obliging sergeant, and settled down for precisely two nights before a torrent descended upon us. Alan Whicker, whose work compelled a remarkable restlessness, we welcomed. Jack Percival we didn't mind, but midway through the second night Percival's curses awoke us to discover the house littered with sleeping bodies and with booted men striding among them in search of floor space. The flames of the fire I lit just before dawn, in an attempt to cheer us with warmth, brought down a tirade of abuse and threats from a passing sentry, whose words, translated from the mass of obscenity which enclosed and hid them, asked if we wanted to be bombed and blasted to hell and have the whole camp bombed and blasted to hell. Similar obscenities greeted our colleagues at Kimpo when they had lit candles in attempts to work after dark or attempted to warm themselves in the bitter chill before the dawn. It was darkness from dusk to dawn, and nothing for it but to bed down on the concrete or wood floors to see the long

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nights through. There were few windows, fewer doors, and no 'black-outs'. Even the most meagre lights were forbidden and the trigger-happy guards made a quiet walk through the camp a dangerous business. In the day and a half Wardy and I had enjoyed some solitude I had organised food from the sergeant cook, and borrowed a woollen shirt from the same obliging chap to keep Wardy a bit warm. But now with the arrival of our colleagues we were condemned to the 'chow line' for which we had neither the time nor the equipment. It was also difficult to hitch-hike, and half a dozen varied vehicles might be necessary to cover the ground. It was depressing, too, as a truck-driver halted obligingly to our call to climb into the midst of dead bodies bearing their labels, and invariably with some Korean child, horrible with facial sores, squatting like a ghoul above them. Yet it was necessary to visit division in order to gain some idea of the march of events and the development of the attack. This meant also a certain test of patience and humour, for high-ranking officers used the same clicbes and phrases as the lower ranks to describe the achievements of the marines. It was disconcerting to hear a colonel say: "The marines are in there punchin', fellers! " or "slogging it out toe to toe". These two expressions became the standard descriptive phrases with war correspondents whenever buttonholed in the rear areas for news of the front. Another description used by forward troops was: 'All hell let loose.' A quartermaster captain at Marine Division led me off to his store and gave me two blankets. He then grabbed my arm and whispered in a voice hoarse with emotion: "Say, feller. Those marines. Fightin' men. In dere punchin'." I was too taken aback at that time to give the standard 'password' answer: 'Yes, sir! Sloggin' it out toe to toe with all hell let loose.' At times these phrases crept into the accounts hammered out against time under trying conditions. In the opinion of the marines, frequently expressed, they were the finest 'fightin' men' in the world, and according to them the United States Army was plain 'muck'. 'We gain de ground. Dose bastards lose it,' they said. Many of us did not find this true, and there

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were, in fact, several regiments with a glimmer of discipline and some attempts at soldierly appearance and behaviour. We moved from Marine Division to Kimpo after fortyeight hours. There were innumerable huts to choose from, all equally cold and cheerless and mostly with concrete floors. The hoped-for camp beds did not materialise, and it was almost impossible to keep warm. But at least there was a certain amount of diversion. Nightly there would be a scare of enemy attack, and this had the merit of huddling 90 per cent of the correspondents into the 'home huts' leaving an outer hut to half a dozen of us. On our first night at Kimpo a colonel stamped urgently into our hut after we had been wakeful for two or three hours watching the glow of an occasional cigarette and with scarcely a word spoken in the bleak darkness. There was no coffee or food after five in the afternoon, and few of us were back from our daily adventures in time for it. We lay, cold, hungry and depressed, unhappy, too, at the revelation of each day, knowing our world ominous with possibilities we had not previously realised. "Get out quick, youse guys," roared the colonel. "There's five thousand Gooks goin' to attack before dawn." This was not meant to be a joke, and the colonel was in a genuine state. Under his urgent and vivid word pictures of all our throats being cut, dim grumbling shapes began to detach themselves from their sleeping bags and blankets and stumble in search of space within the 'citadel'. Presently, as the last stragglers were leaving, Wardy said: "You awake, Tommy?" "Yes." "What d'you think of it?" "All hell let loose," I said. A grunt came from a bundle which was Lionel Crane halfway down the hut, and in the morning we three found ourselves alone. This kind of thing was a regular routine. The colonel and his men were sure they were going to be attacked, and air reports constantly warned them of non-existent enemy groups about to descend upon the field. We didn't believe the enemy were there. And if they were, surely the airfield, vital to the

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rapid build-up of supplies, was adequately defended, and armed sufficiently to smash any attack the enemy could be capable of mounting. But we lived as rigidly as if we were up against the full might of the Germans with their aircraft and artillery instead of this almost unarmed Asian peasant enemy. And we lived also in the kind of masochistic squalor inseparable from the American fighting man. No matter how long troops remained in camp, or how far forward or back, they were always content to hog it. They ate out of tins, or 'chow lined' for masses of food, meat, vegetables, fruits, bread, butter, jam, all lumped together on a tin plate, and which they shovelled into their mouths. No comfort was ever organised. Few ever shaved. None cleaned his boots. And I gathered in conversation with many of them, quiet and shy as they were when detached from the herd, that lacking any kind of 'classes' in their society, and all being 'equal', there were in fact no accepted standards; nothing to aim at, as it were. It seemed a 'guy' who shaved or cleaned his boots, or ate in a civilised way, or obeyed swiftly and well, would be a 'cissy'. For certain he'd be unusual and outside the herd. It took a very strong character to keep his hair, for 'fightin' men' had 'crew cuts' and were 'tough'. II

By the end of the week it was clear that it was a case of those behind crying forward and those in front crying back. The Associated Press News Agency captured the city of Seoul from its offices in Tokyo twice during Friday the 22nd, but the marines across the river on the left flank, now powerfully reinforced, continued to move slowly into the suburbs from the north, calling for air and artillery support to break every road block and to blast every building and possible strong point out of existence. Within twenty-four hours the ferry-crossing point was a sea of mud, and the road churned to a rubble of ruin by the weight of the tracked vehicles. Starting at dawn, Ward Price and I hitch-hiked forward in six hours to discover the marines struggling against small-arms fire, and mortars which persisted

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despite their blasting tactics. There seemed not to be a complete substitute for soldiers, and their officers and N.C.0.s urged them onward in some desperation. Mortar fire bracketing the road had an astonishing effect, clearing it instantly of troops as if by a miracle, so that we found ourselves alone watched only by the quiet eyes of the few villagers. It was a long five minutes before anyone appeared and men began to emerge from beneath trucks and out of holes by the roadside, expressing violent anger against the enemy for this mildly belligerent act. The enemy, meanwhile, were being hit 'with everything we've got', and it seemed impossible that human beings could have the fortitude to withstand dive-rocket-bombing and all the rest of it and still have the nerve to fire their weapons, however inaccurately. There was now no question that Seoul might be spared the most terrible destruction. The first welcome of the people had now abated, and they watched us calmly as we jolted back through the villages in our amtracks, while in the fields men and women worked with their crude wooden implements, quite unmindful of the activities of war. I took the view that it might be another week at this rate before the city fell, and decided to take a look at progress elsewhere. Ward Price agreed. There were rumours of great doings by the 7th Infantry Division, which had taken over the right flank from the marines, but this was difficult to confirm. Meanwhile the marine regiment on the centre line, under Colonel 'Chesty' Puller, whom I had met on the hill-top on the first day and come to admire, were rapidly clearing the Yongdung-po area of the few remaining snipers, and had advanced to the banks of the Han River directly confronting the city. In a borrowed jeep we made our way through the tangled chaos of telegraph wires and overhead cables which festooned the main streets, and lay on the high bank overlooking the city at the railway bridge crossing. Fountains of rubble, smoke and flame leapt out of the heart of Seoul as the bombs did their work, and the shells burst, and we watched in fascination the rocket trails from the wings of the diving aircraft as they

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swooped upon the city. Yet above all it was the silence of Seoul which impressed itself deeply on my mind, as though it lay there inert in the midst of the hills, powerless, yet alive and conserving a spark of innermost strength to expand before the death. Perhaps, even, it was almost deserted, save for those few, the hard core of whatever garrison remained. Air reports told of the hordes of stragglers crowding the roads in all directions out of the city, plodding into the hills with their bundles, plodding to-nowhere. In fact it was estimated that more than half the population, three-quarters of a million people, were leaving or had left Seoul in this fashion. Desperately in need of a diversion from this slow and terrible spectacle, we decided to make a sortie to watch the activities of the 7th Division. We should be away at least twenty-four hours, but I felt that we bad plenty of time, especially as it was the week-end. I was sure that Seoul would not fall. Without difficulty we hitch-hiked back towards Inchon and swung southward over the quiet road which I had walked only four days earlier with Henri Turenne, Bernie and George, talking French literature and art. The dust had abated and lay now like a yellow blight over the herbage. All that remained of the willow-pattern village in a fold of the hillside was a few charred mounds of thatch, and the curling tiles of a roof supported upon the blackened skeleton of the house. But there was a real welcome at 7th Division, for it was no easy matter to lure correspondents away from the glamorous marines, whose teams of colour writers and photographers were spreading stories of dash and unexampled heroism to the ends of the earth. Meanwhile, not a soul had visited the infantry, and the P.I.O. and his team of writers almost embraced us. A Sergeant Westermark, who had developed a taste for tea during his war service in England, and had carried the 'makings' with him ever since, proudly made us a brew. Half an hour later in a special jeep we were on our way forward, our exhilaration growing as we roared mile after mile in the glorious sunshine, through an almost deserted countryside of green hills and fertile valley, rich with rice ready for harvest and with green crops. For Suwon, twenty-

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five miles southward, had fallen, and it was reported that the air strip was in American hands. It was a strange ride. Within five miles we had left the last outposts of the main force, and there was nothing then between us and the reconnaissance column twenty miles ahead. Villagers poked their heads cautiously from their dark doorways, or peered anxiously round the angles of their walls, while others stood inscrutable at the roadsides. It was the opinion of the P.I.O. and our driver that all these were enemy or potential enemy, having left their uniforms and rifles hidden on our approach, but this seemed unlikely to me because we were such a sitting target. But on the hillsides, white figures stood motionless regarding our progress, and these perhaps awaited their opportunity. Once or twice a flaming group of thatched homes blazed the trail of war, and indicated some point from which a shot had been fired. Of soldiers there was no sign; nor was our progress disturbed by the sound of a single shot, though our senses, keenly tuned and tensed to the crackle of sniper fire from the silent hills, gave an edge to the race. And then all at once the huge gateway of the ancient walled city of Suwon confronted us, majestic with a faded oriental splendour, tier upon tier of precise woodwork crowning the massive stones; and we could see the line of the ancient walls over the swell of the land, built to protect the people against the invader of another and less terrible age. We paused for a moment under the lofty tunnel of the archway to look up in some awe into the dark recesses of the elaborate wooden fabric, and drove on then between the poor hovels of the town as the bewildered inhabitants leapt in sudden fright from our approach. Here and there a flat-roofed concrete building served only to enhance the squalor that now lay within the city gate. A mile or two beyond the city we came upon the reconnaissance group of the 7th Division deployed round the perimeter of the airfield. A young lieutenant greeted us politely. He had a smiling, boyish countenance, a magnificent set of teeth, and was bright-eyed with the thrill of his adventures. He told us his story briefly and without embellishment.

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As soon as 7th Division had taken over from the marines their patrols had probed into the countryside ahead, finding it empty. There was an occasional shot. Nothing more. Certainly no possibility of organised opposition. Without more ado a strong column with tanks had then set off straight down the road, the main road to Taejon and the south, up which the Eighth Army were already reported to be advancing at full speed. And here they were. Already a strong patrol was seven miles further on down the road at Osan-ni. Neither of us, talking to this quiet competent young man, would have guessed that he had been a prisoner of the enemy less than an hour earlier~ that going back to meet his divisional staff colonel two miles before Suwon they had been surprised by a troop of enemy tanks which the colonel had mistaken for his own before the lieutenant could get to him to warn him. The colonel had begun to leave his jeep, raising a hand in salute a moment before he died, and the Korean tanks, as is their custom, had moved on over his body and his jeep, crushing both to an unrecognisable mass of steel, body and bones. The lieutenant had been captured and led off by two guards into the rice paddy bordering the road, probably to be shot. But he was a powerful young man of action. Crashing his two guards together with all his strength, and catching them off guard-they had been holding each an arm-he had made a dash for it. And here he was once more in command of his unit. It was late before we left Suwon homeward, escorted by machine-gun jeeps fore and aft, racing at full speed over the silent empty roads between the hills, ominous and eerie, filled with dark hollows of gloom under harsh moonlight. We had the feeling that there were many eyes upon us, and it was bitterly cold. We were anxious to get back, for visions of coffee and warmth grew in our minds, only to die there. For we slept comfortless on the bare wooden boards of a cavernous hut. No glimmer of light was permitted. Coffee was finished long since. 'Chow' but a memory. It seemed that someone, somewhere, must be up, talking, smoking, perhaps having a drink,

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and living life. But a sergeant on a camp bed grunted "No" in answer to my question. It was past 8 p.m., and the divisional headquarters was asleep. At least we had an honest story, and in the morning Sergeant Westermark brewed us many cups of tea while we wrote it down and got it away. III

We walked back to Inchon in the quiet of that Sunday morning and down to the broken wooden ramp on which we had landed. It seemed already so long ago. A launch took us out to the McKinley to collect the papers and belongings of Lachie Macdonald, and then took us over to the hospital ship Consolation. But Lachie had been transferred to a hospital in Japan and there was no other news of him. We had a wash and brush-up aboard, and they gave us a meal in the junior warrant officers' mess, and it was a good meal. Inchon itself seemed even more desolate now that the fires had died and the war had passed it by, a burned-out husk of a place that would, it seemed, never live again. Administrative troops, their guns bulging in elaborate holsters on their hips, piled their stores and established their offices wherever there was a roof. Military police signalled the traffic at the crossroads with their strange, angry gestures. Inchon had become a dump. Inchon was dead. Ward Price, worried about Lachie and wanting to think out what he should do for the best, decided to return to the McKinley and to attempt to reach Tokyo by radio telephone. Now that the pressure had eased he would, at least, be able to make sure that our Suwon stories got home. So I walked alone out of Inchon on that Sunday afternoon, warm and happy in the sunshine that never faltered throughout these days. For the moment the sense of urgency had left me quiet and peaceful. I was prepared, if need be, to walk the twenty or so miles to Kimpo rather than signal any of the roaring trucks which swooped dangerously out of the dust clouds. There was, of course, no road discipline and no discernible rules.

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65

I had progressed about two miles when a jeep drew up a few yards ahead of me, and I met Captain Gould. He wore long ginger moustaches which in a curious way made him seem more youthful than he was. I judged him to be about thirty-five. His grey eyes, thoughtful, yet full of humour, alighted upon me in a . lazy, friendly way, and by way of explanation of bis halt, or simply as a manner of friendly greeting, he remarked: "I am no dust-eater." "It is not to my taste, either," I agreed. Captain Gould signified that, dust-eater or not, dust-eating was inevitable, and invited me into his jeep. It was thus that I embarked with this gentle man on the road to Kimpo, maintaining a dignified progress, making little dust ourselves, and avoiding as far as possible eating the dust of the wildly ra.cing vehicles which surged past us. This added about half an hour to our journey and made it enjoyable. For the first time travelling in Korea I did not fear for my life, maintaining a nonchalance I was far from feeling as whatever vehicle to which I clung roared blindly into opaque clouds to possible disaster. Captain Gould was an engineer engaged in building a ferry across the Han River, discovering mines and rendering them harmless (easy, he said, for the mines were simply crude wooden boxes stuffed with explosive), and attempting to keep the dirt roads in usable condition. He was astonished to learn of the low priority of war correspondents in the campfollowing class, for his race, he said, were inclined to be screwball about publicity, feasting upon it, and basking in its harsh glare. Captain Gould was not simply the companion of an idle hour, but a friend. His camp was within four hundred yards of Kimpo airport building, and engineers had a way of looking after themselves and their friends. He made me welcome. His colonel, the second-in-command, and a dozen officers and warrant officers, including the cook, endorsed the welcome and made me at home. They were as different from 'fightin' men' as another race, and there was nothing bogus about their maleness despite the fact that they had kept their hair. They lent me a E

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camp bed, a sleeping bag, fed me well, and said that here was my home as long as I liked. They agreed also to extend this same hospitality to my friend when he should arrive. They also gave me the news-for they had an inside view of it due to the bridging that would presently be of great urgency-and above all they promised to jeep me to the river soon after dawn to jump a dukw or an amtrack. It was a momentary taste of 'luxury' war corresponding which may be achieved by the simple matter of a jeep. A jeep enables a man to carry bed and bedding and food, to be in the right places at the right time, and to race back to his communications at his own judgment, and not be at the mercy of the whims and fancies and necessities of others. It also means comfort and rest by night. But without jeeps war corresponding is one of the most uncomfortable forms of tramping, for the story must come first, it must be seen, it must be written, and it must arrive. Otherwise all is useless. Lack of transport and communications had turned us into a crowd of lone wolves, jumping whatever vehicles might offer, sleeping where we could, scrounging rations and hiding them like squirrels, and sending off our stories in a variety of ways. For these reasons it was impossible for men to team up and to work together. Some flew to Japan most nights and were back the next morning. Some newspapers and agencies had as many as a dozen men relaying the stories back from one to another, and able to draw all possible coverts, as it were. But many of us were alone, and able to be in only one place at a time, and that with difficulty. In a way it made us all better friends than we might have been otherwise, for everyone knew everyone else, and after a little while there were few of us who had not shared some ditch or danger together. There were three distinct types of correspondent : the writers and serious observers; the communications experts and stunt angle seekers; the photographers. The communications experts often have cropped heads, and in language and b~ haviour are very like G.I.s in the marines. Few of them can write at all and are able to convey simple thoughts in crude fashion. But they could bash their way through with these

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67 messages when others might fail, and the rewrite men would do the rest. As for the photographers, in the main they have become a race apart, flinging themselves in the paths of people and things, flashing their bulbs anywhere and everywhere, and even demanding the repetition of acts of violence if discontented in any way with their first 'shot'. One of those with us, a curiously earnest character without a trace of humour, had earned some fame on his last assignment in Europe by rushing forward and flinging himself down on one knee in front of the Pope and calling out: "Look up, Pope! " as he clicked the shutter. Not all communications men and photographers were of this rugged order, but in the main they were. In the same way some of the serious writers and observers were not unskilled at getting on communications in numerous subtle ways, and even might take good photographs when opportunity offered. These three groupings of men tended to stick together as much as possible. During the week Louis Heren of The Times, Alex Valentine of Reuter, Stephen Barber of the News Chronicle, as well as those others I have mentioned, were frequent companions, and we all did our best to help each other. So that if any one of us decided to fly, or return to the McKinley, he would take the stories of all and do his best with them. This group, at least, was a 'little United Nations' show working in harmony under great difficulties, for French, Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, and the varied inhabitants of the United Kingdom, were bound by a common interest and a common determination to tell, as truthfully as they knew how, the story of this unhappy war.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE FALL OF SEOUL I

morning, 25th September, Colonel Puller swung his marines left-handed out of Y ongdung-po, put them across the river unopposed in amtracks, dukws and assault boats, and deployed his men like ferrets into the mole hills of Seoul's waterfront suburbs. The battle for Seoul was on. Time had begun to matter. Air reconnaissance reported Red columns moving down from the north, and continued to alarm the colonel in command of the Kimpo defences. Heavy reinforcements had reached the airfield, and a second regiment of marines was stiffening the pressure into Seoul from the northern flank. With three divisions ashore and enormous quantities of materials the gaps were filling in, and the overwhelming weight of the attack could no longer be denied. It was, indeed, a miracle that there had been anything more than a token defence. But there was a sense of unreality, disturbing, as though one pommelled a prostrate body. A few mortar shells began to fall harmlessly on the broad expanse of sand flats on the Yongdung-po shore. Phosphorus shells in groups of six sent vast pillars of pungent smoke billowing into the blue sky above the heart of Seoul, and the rocket bombers dived incessantly upon their targets. It was not surprising that the mortar team failed to range more accurately on their target; it was surprising that they fired at all, or that they existed. Several small beach-heads were swiftly formed, and the varied craft began to pile up supplies of food and ammunition. Bernard Forbes, Turenne and half a dozen other correspondents appeared, and a young amtrack driver stated his intention to take his vehicle right forward to the first battalion. We clambered aboard. One thing that surprised us all constantly ON MONDAY

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69

throughout the whole campaign was that most drivers appeared to act on their whims rather than on instructions. This amtrack driver was certainly not acting on orders; simply he felt it would be an adventure. Similarly there was always someone ready to drive· anywhere, G.I.s, N.C.0.s, and officers alike. One had only to ask a ride, and often the driver appeared to have nothing else to do than drive wherever you wished. There were, in fact, hordes of casual military sightseers. This had its irritating side, for it was constantly maintained that the supply question was so tight, and transport from Japan so difficult, that it was impossible to provide even a dozen jeeps for the use of correspondents. Yet there were literally hundreds doing virtually nothing in the way of serving the war. The river suburbs of Seoul are a maze of winding streets lined with wooden, tin-roofed and thatched shanties, clustered here, there and everywhere like growths of fungus sprawling over a disarray of hills, hummocks and flats. Vegetables grew in profusion on every available piece of soil, and the peasants tilled their plots, unmindful of the crackle of shot and shell, or even of the aircraft diving with their devastating rockets. In the narrow streets and at the corners, the people stood in small groups, women with their babes tucked into nests of clothing high upon their backs, and the small girls also carried their brothers, often little smaller than themselves, in this manner. Old men plodded steadily by the roadsides bearing immense burdens of vegetables, or wood, or household junk, strapped to wooden triangular frames which saddled them like beasts of burden. Even the thunderous roar of the amtracks failed to disturb these old carriers from their paths. They plodded on. They could only die once. The enemy mortar team- one imagined them scampering like rabbits, setting up their weapon wherever chance offeredbegan to drop their shells in the river, then on the bank, at times on the road. The amtrack roared on, destroying vegetable patches, caving in the walls of flimsy homes, even dragging down telegraph poles. In the narrow lanes lined with shacks, and narrowed by the telegraph poles, we became a juggernaut. It had become apparent within a few minutes that this was a mad, senseless journey of wanton destruction. Women with

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their babes scampered foolishly in terror across our path, as chickens often do. The tracks of the vehicle caught the overhanging tin roofs and gutters and tore them away, often caving in whole houses in its wake. The din was terrific, but the driver had the thing in his blood and bored on, tearing down dwellings, and butting the telegraph poles in his enthusiasm. Some kind of disaster was inevitable, and it came unexpectedly. Suddenly a young French reporter who had climbed up immediately in front of and forward of the guns let out a scream. The barrel of one of the guns had jammed behind a telephone pole, and its breech with the steel arms for traversing had imprisoned the young Frenchman and were crushing him against the forward framework of the amtrack. I roared at the driver, and by pounding on the steel behind his cabin managed to attract his attention, for it was impossible to make oneself heard. At last with a diabolical shunt the amtrack moved backwards a yard and the young Frenchman dropped in a heap, groaning. Fortunately the steel arm had reached its full traverse, otherwise it must have carved through his body just below the shoulder-blades. As it was, the pressure had been terrific and I thought he must die. His ribs were crushed and broken, but by a miracle his lungs had escaped. He remained conscious and was very brave, whispering apologies for 'being a nuisance'. Henri Turenne helped to get him on to a stretcher, and in a short while a jeep took him back. Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered, and a group of prisoners, already stripped naked, were forced to a halt. In the front were two young women who had been permitted to retain long pantaloons which they held with difficulty to hide their breasts. Clearly these were not 'guerilla women', for their faces showed intelligence and breeding. Two or three reporters stayed to investigate, and later it was discovered that the women were nurses, and that some of their number had been shot 'trying to escape' when the troops had burst in upon them. Three or four of us continued on foot while the amtrack tore its way out of the narrow lane. It was strangely quiet. The people eyed us with a curious impassivity-almost a 'knowing look', or it may have been a kind of austere cynicism

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-as we walked as nonchalantly as possible through the maze of hovels and hillocks, uncertain how to meet all these eyes, whether with smiles, which seemed out of place, or with grave greeting. It was difficult to ignore these people we had come to save; but it was equally difficult to do otherwise. For the saving had taken on a bitter and terrible flavour. There were no signs of troops, and we must have walked for a good thirty minutes before we came up with some marines and climbed a steep hillside to discover Colonel Puller, with his forward command post, establishing themselves in the midst of a cluster of thatched and adobe hovels which sprawled in a sheltered hollow almost at the summit. Mortar shells were now exploding near by, and the range had pulled back about one thousand yards since morning. This was probably a good measure of the progress of the marines, and the sooner they gained another five hundred yards the better it would be. From the hillcrest the burning ruin of all Seoul city lay before our eyes, and with the colonel's powerful glasses I could brood at leisure over the detail. A long wide stretch of main road led up through rows of wooden hovels and shops to the fine brick and concrete buildings on the higher ground, and along this main road veiled in smoke and flame the colonel's leading battalion were making steady progress. Seoul is a vast sprawling hive of a place held within a wall of mountains, and the imposing white block of the Capitol, set off against the mountain background, dominates the city. And all round, on the hills and hummocks falling away from the eastern mountain ridges to the Han River, mushroom growths of villages cluster like children at the feet of a parent. From our vantage point we could watch the progress of the attack and gain a clear picture of the whole position. "I want them to get on right through, and out the other side," said Colonel Puller. But this would require a boldness which had not been evident at any time, and was a forlorn hope. Progress was slow, and the air and artillery strikes, called down constantly in close support to clear the resistance, engulfed the city in torrents of fire which at times made a barrier as impassable as the enemy.

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Ward Price had joined me on the hillcrest, and was impatient for action. "We must get down to see what's going on. It's no use staying here." And together we made our way down, and finally up the main street. An ambulance jeep gave us a welcome lift to one of the barricades, and from there we stalked on as far as we could, sheltering behind barricades of earth-filled bags, and with wide wooden funnels like old-fashioned gramophone horns for loopholes. Soldiers crouched in the shelter of their tanks and by the roadsides, and the air became thick and pungent with smoke. Yet in all this, men, women and children went about their business-whatever it might be !-disdaining cover and without apparent awareness of danger. It was odd to crouch with soldiers behind a barricade, selecting a moment to make a further dash, and then to see a woman with her child on her back simply walk quietly on her way as though it might be a normal Sunday afternoon. Ward Price at sixty-six years old, and with a record of superb journalism and high adventure dating from 1910, was more daring and indefatigable in his determination to know what was going on at first hand than all but a handful of correspondents less than half his age. Someone said when we reached Kimpo that night: "You seem to grow more foolish as you grow older." Maybe. And it may be argued that it is foolhardy to pursue events so closely, and certainly that is true from a newspaper point of view. But we, in our small ways, are seekers after the truth of things, distrusting more and more the 'hand-outs', for at least we have learned as we have grown older in this noisy world that the 'eyes' have it, and the ears, assailed as they are in so many subtle and violent ways, cannot be trusted. But there was not much to discover on this day, except that it would be an exaggeration to call this 'hand-to-hand fighting' in the streets, as the hand-out described it. The road blocks and the buildings surrounding them were blown to masses of blazing rubble. The stench of massed death was putrid in the air and in the clouds of smoke from the fires.

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II

On the second day of the death of Seoul, Bernard Forbes and I walked together the whole way up from one of the beach-heads to the main road, perhaps a distance of five miles through the battlefield of yesterday. Gangs of men and women were already hard at work levelling a new road, and carting loads of rubble for a foundation, for the original route from the river was already a ruin. It was a terrible progress, and I remember the trilling of bird song and the flights of sparrows wheeling in the sky, for this was almost the only sound and movement, a kind of eddy in the backwash of intense unnatural stillness. In the narrow ruined streets civilians worked, silent and expressionless, salvaging the pitiful remnants of their homes, while further on others worked removing the road blocks. Tactical aircraft, using the small Seoul airstrip just across the river, hovered above the city directing artillery fire onto the diminishing targets, and from the foxholes of yesterday a helicopter rose up suddenly like some fabulous bird and dragged great dust clouds swirling behind it. It was an eerie progress, and we gave ourselves over to it without pretence, feeling the personal tragedy of the dead bodies here and there, forgotten at the roadsides, and the naked prisoners, protesting their innocence, marching in droves to the river. But it must have been nearly an hour before there was a sign of friend or foe, and only the occasional crack of a carbine nearby reminded us that there might be pockets of snipers in this hideous maze for many days. From a rise in the ground we had a vista of the river, a remarkable scene of activity, of a dozen kinds of craft bustling to and fro from beach-head to beach-head, while the bridge grew slowly in response to the efforts of my friends, the engineers. It was here that Alan Whicker presently joined us, having walked most of the way in our tracks, and reporting that he had been absolutely 'pinned down' by mortar fire for ten minutes. 'Pinned down' was another popular expression, for enemy fire invariably 'pinned down' the troops.

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But the end was near. The despised 7th Division, filling up rapidly behind their spearhead columns, had made a surprise crossing of the Han a few miles to the south and had marched swiftly to seize a strategic, thinly populated hill feature dominating the entire scene of action and virtually sealing the fate of Seoul. Troops hurried from point to point and from tank to tank, dodging the imperturbable civilians, as they moved forward. But there would not be a dramatic fall of the city. Slowly and inexorably the last life was being squeezed and battered out of it to the accompaniment of a hideous inferno of blast and flames. I wrote that night in my message home : " . . . this is a new kind of warfare more terrible in its implications than anything that has gone before. . . . " Behind us now South Korean troops were winkling out suspects from the hives of dwellings, and we were fortunate to gain a ride in one of the comfortable dukws and speed in it down-river. Civilian ferries loaded with refugees rocked in the wakes of the military craft, and the sand flats towards Yongdung-po were now skeined with long trails of peasants impelled by the simple idea of getting behind the shot and shell, and possibly finding food. The few mortar bombs which landed fitfully near by, to burst harmlessly on the wide expanse of sand, no doubt seemed to them as unworthy of consideration as fire-crackers.

m It is curious that some especial fate seems to choose the companion of outstanding experience. It had been so at the liberation of Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam; at the fall of Hamburg and Bremen; on the Rhine bank on the night of the crossing above Wesel; on the Scheidt, and, above all, at Belsen. On all these days, and many more which have made notches on my mind as deep as the notches old-timers are said to have cut on their gun stocks, I had had no idea of whom I should be with, or whether I should be with anyone at all, until the moment. And this is not so with other days. And then, all at once, 'out of the blue', is the man who will be forever inseparable from this memory.

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75

It was so again on this sombre morning of 27th September when the fate of Seoul was heavy upon us and its surviving inhabitants. At one moment there were a score of us in a truck together all intent on the same business as we lumbered into the main street. And then there were two of us alone. I made no move to follow the others, and neither did my companion. "You are going on, Tommy?" "Yes, of course, Lionel," I answered. And the truck jolted on with we two already fused in comradeship, though I don't think we had previously exchanged a dozen words. Lionel Crane of the Daily Express has the lean, dark, sensitive face and the keen, searching eyes of an adventurer in the realms of thought as well as the physical dangers of the world. I knew at once that there could not be a better partner in an undertaking of this kind, for without doubt we should be at the Capitol together when the flag was nailed to the mast. A mile up the road on the fringe of war the driver found his unit, and we took to our feet. There was an air of excitement in the troops, and a relaxing of the strain in their faces, for they knew that the end was near, and the dreary days of pressing on behind the blasting of guns and bombs were numbered. Within a few yards we dived through a doorway after some marines, and out through back alleys to climb a small shrub-covered hill. We had no idea where we were going, and presently emerged onto a square of lawn with a flagpole fronting a solid brick residence. On the front steps of the house sat the lieutenant-colonel commanding Colonel Puller's leading battalion, and we knew him well from the road through Yongdung-po. He welcomed us with pleasure, regretting that there were no American reporters. This, he told us, was the French Embassy, the first of the embassies to be taken, and he was about to hoist 'Old Glory' with due ceremony. Out of politeness we took some names we could not use, and it was a great disappointment to the thirty weary bearded men that this would not gain them publicity at home. Five minutes later we stood rigidly at attention. A master

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sergeant blew a whistle. The colonel hoisted the flag, and we saluted. But there were still a good three thousand yards of blazing ruin between us and our target, and for the first time I knew a sense of excitement and expectancy. From the top floor of a battered hotel we looked out at close quarters on the devastation. The tall block of the Broadcasting Station had disappeared, and Lionel's chances of tracing 'Seoul City Sue', which, he said, would be a 'scoop', seemed remote. The hotel itself was a shambles of littered, looted and smashed furnishings. ·The lavatories and drains had long since blocked up, and the water supply cut off. It was a miracle that even the shell of so prominent a building had escaped major damage. It had been a nest of snipers yesterday, and the tanks had given it a blasting from close quarters. Behind the advancing column of the leading Americans the people surged as they might in the wake of some procession. We grabbed an interpreter and tried to gain some idea of the communist regime in the last days. A very well-dressed Chinese, giving an English name, seemed to us too smooth and too anxious to rely upon. But we learned that prices had soared beyond the value of money to pay, and that a gold watch or a leica camera would barely purchase half a pound of rice. Soon after the communists had occupied the city American prisoners had been paraded through the streets, many in rags and bootless. But none had been stripped naked. In the last three days the communists had closed their ranks to meet the end and shot all suspects within their grasp. There were houses piled with dead. Immediately the news of the Inchon landing had reached the city hundreds of men had been rounded up and pressed into service in the defence, facing death both ways. In the last two days, they claimed, the communists had begun to fire the city, but indeed this seemed a redundant policy, for it was fired already, and seemed now in the last fury to be drenched in flames. We made our way slowly up the main street and neared the leading tanks, shielding our faces from the intense heat of the flames, and forced to shelter from the c.rash of buildings.

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With all this in my ears and eyes I wrote in my notebook, while we paused: 'It is an appalling inferno of din and destruction with the tearing noise of corsair dive bombers blasting right ahead, and the livid flashes of the tank guns, the harsh, fierce crackle of blazing wooden buildings, telegraph and high-tension poles collapsing in utter chaos of wires. Great palls of smoke lay over us as massive buildings collapse in showers of sparks, puffing masses of smoke and rubble upon us in terrific heat.' For it seemed indeed that 'all hell was let loose' upon this city. Here and there on the rooftops, which might crumble at any moment and immerse them in a furnace, men and women worked hopelessly and with terrible desperation with stirrup pumps and buckets of precious water, of no more use than a child's water pistol, to save something of their homes and oossessions from the flames. · Thus through scenes of desolation most terrible to see we inched slowly forward. The marines lined the sidewalks, squatting on their haunches, lolling in doorways, inevitably chewing. A dark, lean-jawed young marine smashed into a small shop with his rifle butt and helped himself to a 'kitchen' chair, upon which he sat, as though nothing in the world could be more natural than to sit out on the pavement. In a barber's shop two marines sat back in the chairs regarding their unshaven faces and chewing jaws in the mirrors. Behind the abandoned barricades the pathetically small 37-mm. guns, with which the enemy had striven to halt the avalanche, lay undamaged. They might as well have used pea-shooters, but they had fired their small shells, to bounce harmlessly from the armour of the Patton tanks, until the last. The sharp crack of sniper fire came from the red-brick tower of a small church, but no one did anything about it, except to shift out of the line of fire. A sergeant with a bundle on his shoulder told us that in it was the flag, and his job was to hoist it on the Capitol. If we stuck to him we would be there, he said. But the delay irked us and we dived down a cross-street to attempt a detour. It was strangely quiet away from the main street. Civilians with arm bands and old men and women ran to grasp our

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hands, some with tears streaming down their withered walnut faces, sobbing the most pitiful thanks, so that we fled. Yet it was the warmest welcome we had known, with a genuine sound to it, and these poor people had longed for the coming of the liberators. But it was a dangerous business on which we had embarked. Sniper bullets clipped the hanging telegraph wires about our ears, and some had the menacing note of rifles and not the usual mild crack of carbines. Poor people grasped us anxiously from the half doors of their hovels, and dragged us to shelter locating the building from which the fire was coming. I could feel that there was a comfort for these people in our presence, their hands pawing gently on my shoulders, the warmth and sweat of their bodies in my consciousness, while we were alert, tuned to the world outside, not to be beguiled. Presently, keeping tight into the walls, we reached an intersection. South Korean troops covered the approaches in all directions, prone behind their weapons, legs splayed according to the text books. Somehow their behaviour seemed so alien to their natural ways that it took the reality out of the scene, as though here was a bit of play-acting in the 'wings'. The road ahead running parallel to the main street was thronged with civilians, but the troops barred our way and refused to let us pass. They would advance, their officer said, as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we indicated the building in which snipers were active, and a squad went off to investigate. Half an hour later, having cast round in several directions, and unable to make progress towards the Capitol, we retraced our steps to find the squad covering the building from vantage points, as they had covered the streets, but they would not attempt to go in. Back on the main road, we ran forward under cover of the tanks breasting the last rise into the square which was the heart of Seoul and from which broad tree-lined avenues radiate. A double carriageway with grass and shrubs down the centre, and flanked by administrative buildings, led to the massive white block of the Capitol. The slow arcs of red tracer, with their strange lazy-seeming trajectory, smacked into buildings and sandbags, and the marines rushed forward close

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into the roadsides over the last two or three hundred yards, while tanks shunted their huge bodies to command the square. The end was at hand. The Capitol stood in sombre dignity under the great north hill, the scrub still ablaze with trails of flame lit by napalm bombs. Huge portraits of Stalin and Kim 11 Sung grinned down upon us like massive caricatures of the most cynical benevolence. The sergeant, leaping forward with his flag on his shoulder, emerged fifteen minutes later high up on the Capitol building, climbing to the dome. The North Korean flag was torn down, and the Stars and Stripes firmly fixed athwart the dome. It was precisely three o'clock in the afternoon. The battle was won. 'Here,' I wrote, 'at the heart of the desolate wilderness of the charred and burning city there was a moment of peace. The Capitol building still stands in stately magnificence above the sprawling chaos of huts and hovels which housed one and three-quarter million souls but a day or two ago.' Two hundred yards back at the main intersection the tanks were still firing short, sharp bursts. We ran to the Capitol. Marines dragged out half a dozen dishevelled prisoners from the surrounding roofs. It seemed to us that there was an extraordinary stillness. It was over. It might be, we thought, that the war was over. There would not be a hammer or an anvil, as General Almond had predicted. The North Korean army had disappeared like wraiths into the hills, and but for a brief fierce encounter at Taejon there had not been contact. The trap had closed, and it was empty.

CHAPTER EIGHT

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already dusk when Lionel Crane and I reached Kimpo. All the way back to the river the streets were thronged with the jeeps of sightseers pressing forward, and it was difficult to find anyone going back. In the rigid black-out Kimpo itself seemed deserted, and it was impossible to find anyone we knew amidst the hurrying shadows. By the time we had our stories written it might be too late. Lionel said: "Look here, Tommy, we shall have to fly. We can write on the plane. This is hopeless." We walked out onto the field into the ranks of the huge C 119s, most of them with their cavernous bellies wide open. At last we found a pilot and his second sitting beside their craft. "We oughter be in Ashiya by midnight," they said. "Help yourselves." Half an hour later we shared the great dark cavern of the flying box car with a silent, surly individual, who had been brooding in the machine before our arrival. There was a dim light from an electric bulb in the body of the aircraft, enough for our stories, but not enough to read by. I felt like Jonah in the body of the whale. Two days earlier Denis Warner, one of the finest reporters of the war, had been forced to open the rear door and heave out four five-hundred-pound bombs with the help of a sergeant, and only then had the vast machine begun to gain height. It was an unhappy thought. "You can have box cars," Denis had said to me. And now I had one. The pilot popped his head through the doorway to the front cabin. He wore a cheerful grin. "All set? Ashiya in about three and a half hours. " "Thanks," we said. The box car was light, swiftly airborne, and after about IT WAS

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Imjin river- the crossing point (p. 114).

U.S. troops of Cavalry Division crossing the parallel Kumchon road.

The ruin of Namchonjon (p. 150). Napalm and phosphorus in close support on the road to Namchonjon.

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twenty minutes we knew that the climb was over and she had flattened out. Curious how one's ears and senses are all keyed to the rise, the sounds, the signs, and talking, however inconsequently, there is all at once an easing of tension. We lit cigarettes, opened up our typewriters on our knees, and were grateful of the hours ahead. Lionel had a bottle of Scotch, and we needed it. Within the hour I had tidied up 700 words, which was about all the space I could hope for, and because it wasn't written 'hot' I didn't much like it. Lionel punched away, 'take' after take',' filling the unforgiving minute. It was eleven when we touched down at Ashiya and thanked the pilot for a safe landing. The morose individual bolted like a rabbit, and when we reached the Public Information room he was getting through to Tokyo within a minute or two. "Yeah, yeah-dey got it. ... " There was a pause. "Sure, de big joint on de hill ... fightin' . . . sure, sure, in dere punchin' . . . yeah, de flag . . . " The rewrite man, presumably, would do the rest. The telephonist hung up. His face relaxed, a face as round and featureless as a dried melon under the crew cut. There were a dozen N.C.O.s lounging in the stifling heat of the room, reading sex magazines. The radiators were going full blast, so hot that you couldn't touch them. "Say, fellers," said the reporter, "dat sure is a story! I was dere ! " Lionel and I went over our stuff and telephoned it over to our friends in Tokyo. George Folster was in bed, and John Rich of I.N.S. took the first 'take' and sent it off until George was ready to take the last two. It was long after midnight when we had finished and no planes leaving Ashiya through the night. The copy from Korea was piling up by the teletype, and the P.1.0. staff lounged with their feet on the desks, drinking beer out of cans. We were glad we had come. We could not sleep in the intense heat, and the windows were sealed. There were a few drinks left in Lionel's bottle, and we finished it off, waiting for the night to be over. 'Each page is called a 'take', and short 'takes' of 150 or 200 words are usually favoured. F

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In the morning I lined up with the G.I.s at the clothing store, hoping to get some trousers and perhaps a field jacket. The young soldier ahead of me drew about a dozen articles, shirts, trousers, a suit of denims. It was a slow business, a good deal of tough backchat. "Ain't youse got plenty gear?" asked the N.C.0. behind the counter. "So what! " drawled the G.I. lounging over the counter, chewing. They chewed at each other fiercely for a while, tough. I couldn't get anything. "Youse ain't a fightin' man?" said the N.C.0. "No," I said. Outside the store the young G.I. was boasting obscenely. "Get tough wid me, huh! " He had lined up most days for some stuff. It passed the time. "We got plenty, ain't we?" I went up to the officers' club to try to get a coffee, feeling horribly alone, alien and miserable. Lionel had hopped a plane into Tokyo, but I wanted to see the end of the Seoul story and then never to see it again. It was about one-thirty when I filed into a C 54 and fell asleep. The journey is a blank, and I was back at Kimpo by five. No one was there. I walked along to the engineers, and Captain Gould obligingly drove me down to corps headquarters in the saffron dusk. The countryside was curiously at peace, and I saw for the first time the full beauty of the sky at sunset. Captain Gould said that the pontoon bridge across the Han was finished. It had been a rush to finish it in time, a full seven hundred yards of it. Already hundreds of vehicles were rushing food into Seoul, and they hoped to have the railway going from Inchon to Yongdung-po in a day or two. "In time for what? " I asked. "We're not supposed to know! " Gould grimaced. I left it at that. Corps headquarters was established in a large group of factory-looking buildings a few miles short of Kimpo. Up on the third floor under the roof, which was no longer there, there were camp beds for visitors, and there were at least fifty men crowded into the room. To my joy I found Alan Whicker and managed to grab a bed. He thought his

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story had got away by teletype from here. There had been precious little going out. Most of it had gone to Ashiya. Together we persuaded some food and coffee out of the friendly cooks. The place was full of V.I.P.s, mostly United Nations officials in brand-new uniforms and with expensive pigskin suitcases and air bags. Tomorrow the 'Great Panjandrum' himself would make a triumphant entry into Seoul, and hence the hurry to finish the bridge. It was all Top Secret, but, of course, everyone knew. "Let's cover it together," said Alan. "We can weep on each other's shoulders." I lay on my back looking up at the stars, glad that it wasn't raining. But it was bitterly cold. II

The day dawned to the accompaniment of a great hustle, everyone hurrying in preparation for 'the event'. Alan and I, not entirely amused and inclined to be bitter, were caressed and cajoled into a waiting jeep. "Surely we would not wish to miss the ceremony ! " There had not been a jeep to take us to the front at any time to do our legitimate work, for which we had been licensed, and our sponsors had paid large sums of money in fares, cable charges, and costs. Now there were twenty jeeps with drivers ready for all who could be persuaded into them. "How come, all these jeeps? " we asked. "HE must be covered!" explained the major, Public Information Officer, almost wringing his hands. "Probably," we agreed. "But these jeeps, which we understand did not exist even yesterday, where on earth-or was it heaven ?-have they come from? " "Will you please accept a ride to Kimpo? The procession starts from there," said the anxious major. "If you put it like that," we said. It was a pleasant drive almost without dust, for the huge cavalcades of war had slowed, and we directed our driver by side roads before he realised what we were up to. At Kimpo a cavalcade of sixty jeeps was drawn up, all spruce and newly

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painted, even the drivers shaved, and sitting up straight and soldierly for the occasion. Nevertheless we were disgusted with this shameless production of non-existent jeeps, and declined to be blandished further. "There were no jeeps for war," we said. "Today is a quiet day. We have plenty of time to hike. Besides, we are getting used to it. " "But," protested the P.I.0., "we have laid on special facilities to get your stories back. " "How thoughtful," we said. A score of correspondents with their typewriters were already stringing out towards the dusty road. It would be an easy hike, anyway, for everyone was going to Seoul, including my friends, the engineers. In any case we wanted to see something of the city and the general aspect of things before the Great Panjandrum and his cavalcade should arrive. Though there may have been one or two newspaper men who thought highly of MacArthur's ability, there were none, I think, who liked him. His assumption of a kind of divinity had alienated him, apart from his attempts to control the news by feeding it exclusively through the four agency channels of the entourage he carried round with him. Above all, he had tried to expel a total of seventeen journalists for their criticisms, and this had closed the ranks against him with all shades of opinion. Yet there were few who dared to write the truth of things as they saw them in their cabled stories, committing their thoughts and the true pictures of events to their confidential air mail. Many of those who felt the burden too heavily upon them, and the matter too urgent, left the area at the earliest opportunity and wrote their stories in safety. The campaign in the south had been strangely disturbing, and it was remarkable that many first-class men had had enough after two or three months, and it was considered that no man should cover for more than three weeks without a rest. One or two had rushed off scarcely waiting to welcome their 'reliefs', as though the devil were at their heels. Yet, five years of the Second World War under heavy bombardment, and often under the most terrible conditions, had failed to daunt anyone.

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It was clear already that there was something profoundly disturbing about this campaign, and something profoundly disturbing about its Commander-in-Chief. I must confess that the picture of the man, as he was presented, and the words he spoke filled me with nausea, and I could not be said to be capable of viewing such a man objectively. It was intolerable to anyone of my liberal views and individualist tendencies to find myself, however remotely, under such a command, and I could not admit that such was the case. For these reasons, and many others difficult to trace, Seoul was approached on this bright morning of 'peace' in a general mood of cynicism. We thumped slowly over the long pontoon, 'swept' on by the theatrical gestures of the special military police, the white chamber-pot head-dresses shining in the sun. They had developed a kind of saluting semaphore in which both arms swept to left or right at shoulder level, hands outstretched, fingers together. They performed this movement rhythmically irrespective of the traffic-indeed it was all going one way and anxious to keep going. At any rate it obviously fascinated the peasants, and amused us. In fact, the whole day would have been a wonderful story to guy. A squad of six waggons moved steadily up and down spraying all the route most carefully with disinfectant. Guards stood at twenty-five-yard intervals all the way to the Capitol building, and the people stood silent amidst the hot smouldering rubble of their city. They were about fifty yards back, for along much of its length the main road up from the river was no longer lined with wooden huts and shacks and shops, and was now a street through a wilderness. The telegraph poles still smouldered with little wisps of blue smoke. A remarkable job of cleaning up had been accomplished, and the chaos of tangled wires and cables, which in my mind are the outstanding symbols of battered cities, had been cleared. The lofty main hall of the National Capitol and seat of the Government of South Korea looked almost undamaged. Long heavy mulberry-coloured velvet curtains lent an air of warmth and richness to the stately council chamber, well lighted under a moulded barrel roof of heavy glass panels, some of which

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had fallen, and many were broken. A double stairway to an entresol and galleries curved to embrace the dais, on which chairs, a table, a lectern and microphones were set. The body of the chamber was ready for an audience with rows of chairs and narrow tables facing the dais. Officers busied themselves putting all in order. Photographers climbed about working out angles, distances, and lighting so that the ceremony might be made visible to the world. Name cards were in position on the desks of the first three or four rows; the generals, the admirals, the administrators, the mayors, the police chiefs, and the whole galaxy of South Korean government officials. The hall began to fill up, and P.I. officers rushed about, as anxious now that we should know all about it, as they had been previously that we should know nothing about it. Printed copies of General MacArthur's speech were handed out. It was largely concerned with Almighty God and the Lord's Prayer. One correspondent cabled the lot including the Lord's Prayer in full at ls. 1-!d. a word. Colonel 'Chesty' Puller, weary-eyed and stained with the grime of war from head to foot, came in and was glad to find us. His men had had somewhat of a skirmish on the outskirts of the city an hour or two earlier and had suffered some casualties. The colonel was unhappy, his eyes revealing an extraordinary sadness. "I thought I should be here," he said. There was but one other in all the brilliantly uniformed, bemedalled, sleek and well-dressed throng, who had fought and suffered in the fall of Seoul, and who felt equally out of place. He sat now, an emaciated figure, shrivelled up in his sagging clothes, Chung hi Yong, Deputy Mayor of Seoul, the only one who had not fled. He had survived one hundred days in hiding, working as best he could to keep heart in those who remained loyal, and striving to defeat the communist regime. At the last moment Vice-Admiral Andrewes, commanding the powerful British and Commonwealth fleet under the United Nations, came in with his flag lieutenant and staff, in spotless whites. He greeted Alan and I warmly, and told us with a grin that he had rushed up from Sasebo, the Japanese naval

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base, at 30 knots, to 'show the flag'. But he did not feel in the mood to flaunt it, and chose seats at the back of the chamber. Presently there was a hush. The photographers leapt about like monkeys on banisters and balustrades focusing batteries of cameras. General MacArthur, looking curiously human, old and even pitiable without his hat, came slowly down the stairway leading a small brown-faced~ grey-suited figure by the upper arm, as a headmaster might lead a pupil. And there was nothing in his mien to reveal whether it was his intention to cane the boy in front of the school gathered here in Great Hall or to hand him an illuminated address. The 'pupil' was Synghman Rhee, whose corrupt government of South Korea had made him as distasteful as Chiang Kaishek, an embarrassment to the United Nations, and another awkward bedfellow of 'democracy'. To the accompaniment of the incessant acrobatics of the photographers and the flash of their bulbs, without which one is scarcely permitted to view anything nowadays, the ceremony began. Rhee, with his austere, grey-haired wife beside him, took his place with half a dozen leading officials on the dais. MacArthur grasped the lectern and slowly with tears in his eyes and voice read his purple speech and intoned the Lord's Prayer. It was difficult to believe that this man with the breaking voice and thinning hair nursed his dreams of the conquest of Asia, and saw himself not only as a Superb Mikado, but as a Genghis Khan in reverse, threatening to bring down the world about our ears if he wasn't stopped. Yet, if shrewd observers were to be believed, MacArthur's ambitions embraced these vasty and terrible dreams. As he spoke, mastering his emotion, spears of glass began to fall from the glass-panelled roof, to shower down dangerously upon the dais and the body of the Chamber. But the old man continued, undismayed, unhurried, turning at last to Synghman Rhee to address his final words : "Mister President, my officers and I will now resume our military duties and leave you and your Government to the discharge of the civil responsibility."

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The shafts of glass rained down. Colonel Puller whispered: "It's more dangerous than forward. I don't want to die here!" A group of high officers wisely put life above dignity and bolted unashamedly to cover under the shelter of the wide balcony. Bravely Synghman Rhee took the stand. He promised justice, mercy and forgiveness to all who surrendered. It was a noble speech, holding all who heard it. ... " ... Let the sons of our sons look backward to this day and remember it as the beginning of unity, understanding and forgiveness. And may it never be remembered as a day of oppression and revenge.... " I am far from hard-boiled. These words moved me deeply, as they did most of those who heard them. Even now it is as impossible to believe them to have been uttered in a spirit of the most appalling cynicism as it is equally impossible to believe that they were not. For it seemed to us that the mission of the United Nations was fulfilled, saved miraculously from the disaster which had threatened only two weeks earlier. South Korea was liberated. United Nations forces were moving forward unopposed to the 38th Parallel. The North Korean Army had fled. Surely now the re-equipped South Korean Army could safeguard its frontier? And if these promises of justice and mercy were true the promises of a new world might take root and, however haltingly, begin to flourish on this rim of Asia, revealing new conceptions of mankind to primitive peoples, inured to suffering, and so little acquainted with pity. Perhaps MacArthur, rising to unsuspected heights of humility and greatness, had discarded his hat as a symbol, coming before us the honest architect of a democratic triumph bringing with it the immeasurable bounty of peace, not only here in this outpost of Asia, but throughout all the world. I believe that here in the Council Chamber of the National Capitol of shattered Seoul was a crossroads in our story, not very difficult to recognise. But before the echo of these noble words of the South Korean President had died away the prisons had filled. Men, women and even children, suspect or guilty, were most brutally beaten up. Soon hundreds fac.ed the firing squads, and, riddled

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with bullets, often slowly done to death, were heaped into common graves by their executioners. Few stayed to bear eye-witness to these horrors, for all the rest of the hopes were swiftly dispelled as the United Nations, flushed with victory, leapt forward for the kill. But those who did stay wrote fearlessly of these things, and British troops, shocked by these massacres of peace as no horrors of war had moved them, forcibly prevented these shootings whenever they could, and saved many from their executioners. As we left the Council Chamber to emerge into the bright sunshine there was hope in our minds and hearts.

m Alan and I made our way back to corps in leisurely manner to write and send off our stories. For once there was plenty of time, and there was much to observe. So much indeed that we decided that a full day would be necessary. Peasants in tens of thousands wound long trails out of the hills in which they had sought sanctuary, trudging now grimly, yet hopefully, back into their city with their burdens. Perhaps half of them might find their homes, while the rest scratched about in the charred debris to discover what might remain of their possessions and the bodies of their dead. It was estimated that fifty thousand civilians had died. And I thought that seldom in history could the opposition of so few have brought down so terrible a retribution upon so many. On this quiet evening the peace and calm of the countryside contrasted vividly with the stark ruin of the city. The peasants of those villages which had escaped the torrent of this new type of warfare went on with their lives, working in the paddies and vegetable patches in the growing dusk, harvesting the precious rice grain and the heavy root crops as though nothing had happened. The tide had passed them by, and the stricken city would provide an insatiable market for many days. Perhaps, even, there would be a harvest of wealth for the lucky ones. Back in corps headquarters we found a warm and almost jovial welcome now that the crisis of 'El Supremo's' visit had

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safely passed and the flurry had abated. The major, P.I.0., a very obliging chap within the limits of his restrictions, did bis best to make us feel at home, and gave me a signed order to the Q store which enabled me, not without difficulty, to acquire a serviceable pair of trousers and an extra blanket. For the rest he was at our service. The 'logistics' of the whole Inchon affair were available, and he was anxious to gain publicity for his general, formerly the Supreme Commander's Chief-of-Staff and a bitter rival of General Walton Walker, commanding the Eighth Army. It had been, undoubtedly, a brilliantly organised effort, brilliant especially in conception, and consuming among other things 1,250,000 gallons of petrol, the food of the machines, and 1,065,000 operational rations, the food of the men. 8,000 prisoners, their nakedness now concealed in drab uniform from the prisons of Inchon and Seoul, inhabited the great cage, squatting listless, unwilling or unable to make the slightest effort of any kind, even for their own comfort. A further 15,000 enemy were estimated to have been killed. Meanwhile six doctors and six nurses were dealing with nearly 1,000 wounded prisoners, and within three days had cut off more than 500 arms and legs. The railway with two or three engines chugging slowly, and as though in great pain, over the line to Y ongdung-po, dragged 50,000 tons of rice, discovered undamaged at Inchon, for the relief of Seoul, and 3,000 vehicles had crossed the pontoon bridge in the first twenty-four hours. We discovered half a bottle of whisky called 'Red Roses', ate large suppers, and slept again more warmly under the stars, resolved to use Saturday for a final exploration of Seoul and round up the whole sad business. Without much difficulty we persuaded a jeep out of the major. He demurred a bit, but could scarcely refuse. All the jeeps could not have sailed back to heaven-or wherever it was-so soon. We had a pleasant, quiet driver, and a full day without urgency before us. Not having a Sunday paper, Saturday is a holiday for me, though it always turned out that I used it to tie all the loose ends of each week and build up a story for Monday.

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We drove at once to the Chosen Hotel and walked for a while through the terraces and pagodas of its eastern gardens in which flowers still bloomed. In the cellars, French and Russian champagnes, Rhenish hocks, clarets, even the exotic Chateau d'Yquern, bloomed also. There were many cases of Scotch, plentiful gin, and a galaxy of fine liqueurs. It was hard to tear ourselves away. The dank stench of war and death pervaded the city despite the disinfectant waggons spraying their clouds of odorous fluid over streets, ruins and people. From the early hours the peasants from the surrounding countryside had plodded in with their loads of vegetables, and a street market, almost gay with the bright silks of pink and emerald green with which many women had already draped themselves, thrived for a full one thousand yards up from the river. It was too early yet to measure the extent of the disaster which had overtaken the South Korean capital and its people, and I believe the impression in these first days was worse than the facts. Acres of complete destruction gave way suddenly to areas which had escaped almost entirely. To our astonishment, as we drove slowly and at random, taking whichever turns we fancied, we came upon a rich oasis, a maze of narrow streets hung with colourful signs, a kind of miniature Montmartre, miraculously untouched. The narrow ways were crammed with people, the shutters were down from the little shops displaying odds and ends of clothing, cheap stationery, toilet goods. Street sellers squatted in the gutters offering American cigarettes at the equivalent of ls. 3d. a packet in the local WON currency. Gay little cafes abounded, many of them with an unmistakable naughty flavour. Windows were decked with tiny plain cakes and doughnuts, and windows and tables with flowers. In one such cafe at the heart of this small hive of life in the midst of death Alan and I were served with a famous brand of American coffee in delicate china cups for the price of 6d. And even more to our delight and astonishment-for no pangs of pity had revealed many signs of beauty in the women-two perfectly groomed, nyloned and unmistakably beautiful women waited upon us.

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We sat for nearly an hour while a score of men came in, most of them well and cleanly dressed. They acknowledged us without over interest, and two or three talked freely enough in broken English. The gist of it was that it had been 'terrible', but they had known how to survive. In fact we were in the heart of a kind of local 'spiv' kingdom with the ability to adapt and survive in almost any circumstances, for the frets of faith and idealism which are natural to most people afflict them not. This experience served to throw the outer horror into greater relief for us, and soon after midday I sought out the mayor while Alan concentrated on the embassies. The steps, the marble halls, the corridors of the almost undamaged City Hall were thronged with peasants, some squatting dully against the walls, exhausted and near to despair, while others peered in and out of the rooms- many of which were untenanted-all bewildered, all hoping for aid and guidance. The sturdy, squat, capable-looking figure of Dr. Kim, a woman who had won justifiable praise for her competence in civil affairs and was Assistant Mayor of Seoul, stood on the main steps within the entrance hall like a rock amidst the turbulent seas. "First the living, then the dead, " she said. "Food and burial." The corpses of hundreds, slaughtered in the last days by the communists in a frenzy of hate and lust, were flung carelessly in that shocking confused huddle of abandon, that same tangle of arms, legs, heads and trunks, which has become almost commonplace to my eyes in these last years; which we saw in the death pits and obscene sheds of Belsen, even littered over the fields of France, in the Falaise gap, tumbled bodies, faces down, faces up, in the ditches, in the fields, in the lanes and the forests, in the cellars and the rubble and the ruins, swollen, emaciated, charred and grotesque as the fires had roasted them, grinning, mute, rotting, sightless, dead. Dr. Kim made a gesture of hopelessness. Then suddenly her eyes blazed in her smooth, chubby brown face. "There is nowhere to put the emphasis. There is no priority. It is all emphasis; all priority. You have seen! " She leaned

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forward, speaking in careful English, a fierce challenge, and, I thought, an accusation. "Yes," I said quietly, "I have seen." She could not know how terribly I have seen, from end to end of the earth, in the heart of South America even where the corpses rotted in the wilderness of the Gran Chaco, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Yellow Sea, all the lands of the earth, save only the North American Continent, knowing the full and bitter flavour of war. I seemed to have seen very little else all my adult life. It was old to me, but in a new pattern of ominous portent. I found my way through the dull crowds to the mayor, Kipoong-li. He was in his parlour, dismissing a committee. There were dozens of committees. The lace curtains veiled the tall windows of the elegant room and the floor was well carpeted. "I don't want to take up your time," I said. "What is the plan?" Ki-poong-li's lips trembled. He looked as if the stuffing had gone right out of him since the glamour of yesterday's ceremony in the Council Chamber of the Capitol. "Plan," he repeated, almost to himself, "plan-we had a plan, sir.... " Suddenly his voice sharpened with dismay. "It was a little plan ... " He shrugged his shoulders, expressing utter bewilderment, and his voice tailed off again to a whisper. "We could not imagine this . .. . " I shook hands and left him to his colossal task. A new committee was filing in at the door, bowing. The mayor was in almost as sorry case as the people he was striving to save and who sought his counsel. And he was striving. Volunteer gangs had been organised to clear the rubble and were already at work, while new squads were marching with shovels to the worst sites and most urgent jobs. Aided by American engineers and technicians, the breaks in the aqueducts, which had brought water from the Han River, and in the sewerage system, were being tracked down. Only the smallest of the four main power stations had escaped complete destruction. It would be at least a month before water and drainage could be partially restored, and a week before they could hope for a bare minimum of light and power for the most essential services.

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Alan met me on the steps of the City Hall. He had discovered that the price of rice had fallen by two-thirds since yesterday and a good job of distribution was being done. But it was clear that thousands were yet to starve, and death from many causes, not the least from violence, would not be a stranger to Seoul. Police were being rushed up from Pusan to relieve the hastily enrolled 'Vigilantes', many of whom were abusing their privileges, finding such times of distress and chaos good for revenge. It was growing dusk as our patient driver steered the jeep back over the pontoon. The long lines of peasants still twisted their tangled two-way skeins of endless procession over the sand flat. The sun was a vast red ball of fire seeming to scorch the low hills westward as it sank behind them, so v10lent in its aspect that one half expected a mighty cloud of steam to sizzle out of the sea. We sent the driver back to corps with our thanks, and dropped off at Kimpo. There was a C 54, and Alan easily wheedled places for us, and we climbed in. The seats were occupied, but we made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the baggage, and began to hammer out our stories. I did not find it an easy story, and the lights of Tokyo were in sight after four hours and more across the Japan Sea, before I wrote the last words . . . "It is inescapable that the terrible fate of the South Korean capital and many villages is the outcome of a new technique of machine warfare. The slightest resistance brought down a deluge of destruction, blotting out the area. Dive bombers, tanks and artillery blasted strong points, large or small, in town and hamlet, while the troops waited at the roadside as spectators until the way was cleared for them. Few people can have suffered so terrible a liberation." We did not know then that this was but a foretaste, a first instalment, of the horrible price the people of Korea would presently be called upon to pay. We thought it was overand it had only just begun.

PART TWO

THE ROAD TO PYO N GYANG

Stephen Barber and Mike James ditched. "The din was terrific" (p. 142). Halted with the column in close country (p. 143).

Capt. Slim, adjutant; Padre, Argylls; Author. First fine Sunday north of Pakchon (photograph by Roy Macartney).

Men of Middlesex about to move forward in U.S. Transport.

CHAPTER NINE

BRIEF INTERLUDE I

correspondents abounded. The lounges of the Marunouchi, the bars of the Press Club, and the ramifications of the Radio Tokyo building, teemed with a cross-cut of the world's foreign correspondents, talking and shouting 'shop'. A handful had remained at Taegu to report on the swift progress of the Eighth Army to join with the triumphant 10th Corps. The story was over. London, it was predicted, and the cables swiftly confirmed, had wearied of it. Washington was now the centre of interest, and the war, or what was left of it, would disappear from the front pages it had held for so long. Already foreign editors had begun to redispose their forces. Ward Price, Frank Owen, and a half-dozen other 'world travellers' were busily planning routes for Indo China, Kashmir, Formosa, Hong Kong, and the Middle East. The Inchon landing, obvious as it had appeared, was, none the less, a master-stroke. The tables had been completely turned. We must all seek new pastures. We drank champagne, listened to the exhilarating gossip of Randolph Churchill in Ward Price's rooms, and for the moment relaxed. My little box of a room on the ninth floor, the hot bath across the passage, and the shower seemed princely luxury. The simple food was a delight, though Alan Whicker, with his hearty appetite, astonished and baffled the tiny waitresses by eating all the customary eighteen dishes on the menu, usually in groups of four or five. But it disconcerted the waitresses even more to demand, say, number seven followed by number two. For they were trained to whisk away all the implements down to the number ordered. This fascinated the Uruguayan charge d'affaires and induced him NEWSPAPER

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to experiment, sometimes beginning at number eighteen and working back at random, and at other times beginning in the middle and working north and south. This created a remarkable knife, fork and spoon crisis. Despite the obvious desire of everyone to relax, a tension swiftly grew. Old hands, knowing the Far Eastern scene in their bones, were far from happy. I do not think that anyone believed that MacArthur would accept victory gracefully. Simply this success would serve to whet his appetite for power and encourage him to grasp this chance for war. The new pastures he would seek, they predicted, would be in Manchuria, and the results would be disaster. In July political observers close to these things had been alarmed by his visit to Chiang Kai-shek, not for its execrable taste, but for its deeper implications. What plans were these two men concocting to further their mutual dreams? In Tokyo, at any rate, our first reactions that this might be the end very soon seemed incredibly naive. For whatever the United Nations might genuinely believe about their mission in Korea, this was MacArthur's chance, and he would not let it go. The Chinese were worried about Formosa, and worried now about the resumption of the Synghman Rhee regime in South Korea, which strengthened the United States-Kuomintang threat. Plans were known to be developing to create subversive activities inside China, and to do all possible to undermine the Government. It was believed by the best-informed correspondents in Tokyo that the Chinese had decided to intervene in Korea at the time of the Inchon landing if United Nations forces should cross the Parallel. To this end troop movements in Manchuria had been observed. Secondly it was believed that MacArthur would cross the Parallel. I air-mailed my office something of these fears, and added: "If Russia or China is provoked across the border this army will disintegrate, leaving its vast equipment behind it. . . . Against an armed enemy of any quality we shouldn't have a chance." Tokyo so far as I was concerned was a brief interlude and nothing more. On Sunday morning, cmp.ing into the lounge

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just before ten o'clock, I ran into Frank Owen, Tom Shaw and Lionel Crane and was wafted into their midst. "We're off for the day, Tommy," said Lionel. "Come on. Relax." "In sunny Kamakura ! "said Tom in the dry chuckling voice which, coupled with the patient benevolence of his expresssion, always seems to conceal a joke. "Just trippers," said Frank. So we relaxed. It was an immense relief to be away from the atmosphere of Tokyo, even for a day, and to sample for the first time the delights of Japan. The strain went out of us, and I resolved henceforth to see all I could of this strange country. II

A heap of new regulations held me unwillingly in Tokyo for two more days. War correspondents held the lowest travel priority, and could be moved off a plane at the last moment to make room for any potato-peeler proceeding leisurely to the aid or replacement of another potato-peeler far behind the lines. Now that more airfields were available and many more aircraft were flying, paradoxically it became more difficult to reach Korea. Even though every conceivable relevant personal detail was known to the Public Information Office, a range of new forms had been invented, new health certificates were deemed necessary, and it was difficult to avoid the poison of more inoculations. I was lucky to get off from Haneda in a C 54 with Freddie Sparks of the Chicago Herald Tribune on one side of me and a grave-faced psychiatrist colonel with a humorous eye on the other. If the incorrigible Freddie with his great drawling, booming voice, his expressive lower lip, his great mobile indiarubber face and head-which reminded me of Grimaldidrove me mad or too sane, I could turn to the psychiatrist for readjustment. Indeed I owed this journey on a C 54 almost entirely to the indefatigable Freddie who would have swum to Korea rather than hitch-hike in a C 119 or any of the other overloaded craft which buzzed in and out of the airports of Japan under the auspices of Cargo Command.

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THE ROAD TO PYONGYANG

Apart from the fact that Freddie and I had achieved an immediate understanding of our forms of humour, he was determined to convince me that Britain still called the tune in Washington. I couldn't believe that Freddie believed this himself, and I couldn't believe that British diplomacy had reached the infant class standards of the outward signs of United States bungling in the Far East. But this in no wise disturbed the strong friendship which was growing between us. The forty-eight hours' enforced delay in Tokyo had been useful. I had had time to begin to know Homer Bigart and Tom Lambert (then of A.P.) in a way that would have been difficult under our normal working conditions. With Bernard Forbes I had made the acquaintance of the ebullient bulk of Frank Hawley of The Times, still going about his business in spite of MacArthur's endeavours to remove him. I had lunched with George Polster at the American Club, and at last knew where I was going, and why. It seemed unthinkable that only two weeks separated me from being a groping 'new boy' wondering if there might be a remembered face to an old hand knowing everyone and with a dozen previously unheard-of places certain to hold a welcome. Also I had acquired, under the influence of Alan Whicker, an impressive thick grey tuft of beard with some ginger bits curling up from under the chin, and a strong ginger moustache without a hint of grey. This beard had some virtues which for a time outweighed other considerations. It saved the need to shave delicate portions of the chin in ice-cold water on ice-cold mornings. It looked neat. It even induced Bernie Kaplan- who is one of the nicest young men on earth- to call me 'sir' by mistake on one or two occasions. In short, it dispelled the remains of my youthful appearance and probably was responsible for the fact that I was often referred to as 'the doyen of war correspondents'. But since age will overtake me soon enough I disliked this short cut, and preserved it only because I was seldom confronted by a mirror. I was glad, too, that I had remained some extra hours in Tokyo, for it had brought me in contact with Randolph Churchill, who, because of the vast and magnificent shadow which pricks at his heels (as though he were a rather

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un-Barriesque Peter Pan), has a certain handicap with certain people, and a considerable advantage with others. He proved himself at once a good friend and first-rate fun. His foot wound, acquired on a night patrol of the Naktong river, still troubled him, for it had been slow to heal with his heavy weight, too soon and too impatiently, upon it. And now, with warm feelings behind me, I was in this aircraft with its oddly droning port engines scaring the wits out of us, and all but Freddie Sparks pretending that they were unaware of it. But I refused to let my imagination play on these matters for the morbid satisfaction of Freddie, or to speculate on the possible fate of one or two of these aircraft which had departed to fly the Japan Sea, never to be seen or heard of again. Meanwhile the colonel psychiatrist was keen to talk and to discover what he could about his charges. Obviously all was far from well, despite the tremendous feats of bravery and endurance and the unexampled heroism which were glowingly described in the American newspapers. He had been bundled into this uniform with an eagle on his shoulder very precipitately and had left a lucrative practice in the call of duty. We discussed the emotional unbalance of the American people from the cradle to the grave, the accounts of which would have entertained the world in happier times, but now filled many terrified onlookers of the 'circus' scene from Hollywood to McCarthy and back to MacArthur with awful misgiving. I said: "I don't know enough about your business to have much idea of what you can do for some of these young men out here from a military viewpoint. Frankly, I should say-just nothing at all. Doubtless you will be able to help them as people. But they haven't been trained as soldiers, and I believe it can only be done by training. But it's worse than that: psychologically they seem to regard the acceptance of discipline as a weakness, and without discipline you cannot have soldiers." "It's tough. One has to begin at the beginning, and this isn't it," he said. " Please go on talking." So I went on talking because I thought that this earnest and keen-minded man wanted all the evidence he could get.

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I told him of my experiences with Americans in the World War, in the Ardennes, in Paris, Brussels, Nuremberg, and many parts of the world. I thought that one of the important factors confronting him was to persuade the average G.I. to face reality. They impressed me as play-acting; their crew cuts, their swagger, their obscene phrase-book speech, their ostentatious guns, and the glamour with which the whole thing had to be surrounded, was a refusal to face the grim and terrible reality of war and death. For, removed from the herd, all these trappings dropped from them revealing often naive and generous young men. "The trouble is we aren't a fighting people like you Europeans," said the colonel. "We're simply beginners at this business, and we don't like it." This represents the substance of our talk as the engines of the C 54 purred us safely to Korea that day. And it seems to me that it is a great strength of America that she not only invites others to talk like this in good faith, but talks like it herself. A physical pain developed suddenly behind my eyes as the C 54 lost height and circled the field of Kimpo, glittering with ranks of aircraft in the sun. I had developed a heavy cold, and now for the first time I knew the misery of sinus pains. When I staggered from the aircraft with Freddie I was almost blind, and it was an hour before I had recovered sufficiently to go about my business. The C 1l9s were landing at ten-minute intervals to disembark troops flying up from Taegu. For the first time I met the advance parties of the Australians, the Middlesex and the Argylls, glad to be on the move, glad that something was happening. But nine out of ten asked: "What's the news, mate? Is it peace?" "No. It's war, I think." "We're crossing then? " "Looks like it." The Australians, in particular, were hungry for a fight. They had volunteered for adventure, and so far they had not had it. They looked bronzed, fine soldiers, keen-eyed under the slouch hats for which G.I.s were offering twenty dollars and no takers. I talked with a group of young officers, including

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Captain Slim, the son of the C.I.G.S., a friendly crowd, and I was glad of this swift meeting, hoping to join the brigade soon and report their doings. Freddie was going north to find the Cavalry Division, already through Seoul and crossing the Imjin river. I had to go south to Taegu for a few days and would join him as soon as possible. I had not yet visited Eighth Army headquarters or the air force still at Taegu, and there were various small jobs which I had been unable to tie up on arrival. There was no great hurry. United Nations troops were nowhere in contact with the enemy and had not yet encountered genuine rearguards or anything worse than sniping from local village communists. Perhaps there weren't any rearguards. On the east coast a South Korean column was reported across the Parallel and going ahead as fast as it could march, Jiving off the land. We went down to 10th Corps to get what we could of the general picture and to be overwhelmed with the complete statistics of the Inchon affair. Doctors were still busily amputating the arms and legs of 'Gooks'. The vast voice of Freddie Sparks resounded in the cold passageways and made warmth and friendliness everywhere. Cooks produced better food on his approach. It was never too late for coffee. I believe that the roof might even have been replaced over the emptiness of our sleeping quarters on the top floor under the sky had there been time. In fact Freddie is a kind of genius. In the morning I thumbed a ride in a C 46 out of Kimpo for Taegu. It was my first glimpse of the thickly wooded hills of Korea, now aglow with the russet of autumn, the thatched villages in the narrow river valleys, the intensive cultivation, the winding tapes of the few roads. It reminded me nostalgically of Jamaica, a land of bold contours mazed with passes and difficult mountain tracks, and the few roads deeply enfiladed, enclosed by the steep hillsides. Or another northern Greece, a perfect terrain for guerilla warfare, boding ill for a mechanised road-bound army with a strong distaste for walking on its feet. These hills over which we soared might hide a million men, and the harvest of the valleys might feed them, for they needed but a handful of rice or millet meal each day for a man. There

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was nothing of a miracle in the swift disappearance of the North Korean army. The bulk of it might even now be watching the advance of the Americans, biding its time to ambush the rearguards, and raid the narrow channels of the lines of communication. Only the aircraft droning overhead would be safe from them. It must have been clear to anyone flying over Korea that a Korean army could never be defeated on the roads, in the valleys, the villages and towns. Indeed, at this moment, the roads and towns of almost all Korea were there for the taking. But the hills were theirs. I remembered that throughout the long Japanese occupation there had been always guerilla warfare, and the Japanese had regarded it as a first-class training ground. It was comparable with the North West Frontier. It was going to be a dangerous and uncomfortable winter wherever one might be in this unhappy land, and the end was not in sight. The sheer beauty of the land surprised and delighted me, for most of my colleagues had no words too bad for it or for the low standards of its people. But now again the sinus pains were blacking out my eyes and my thoughts. The C 46 was coming in to land. The jet fighters were taking off in pairs almost wing tip to wing tip, but there was no room in my mind for anything other than this most terrible pain which increased with every moment, and finally left me near to exhaustion. When I began to see again and could begin to get my bearings I saw the other half of the story of the British Brigade on its way to Kimpo and the north. The huge twin tails of a C 119 collapsed with a sickening thud as it slowed after a bumpy landing. No one was hurt. Phalanxes of the huge flying box cars waited with their hinder doors gaping to receive varied cargoes of bombs and men, including_ the main body of the British 27th Brigade, later known as the Commonwealth Brigade. They were a remarkably cheerful crowd of men, delighted at the prospect of a change of scene, yet revealing by their remarks that they thought the war might be over, and that Hong Kong, their home station, might not be far away.

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m I stayed for four days in Taegu sharing a large first-floor schoolroom with Monty Parrot of Reuters, a good Korean 'houseboy'. and a stove which he kept going most of each day and night. It was my first taste of wartime comfort. Here were camp beds, a certain amount of service, and water available from a covered washing shed and lavatories in a strip of garden separating two large blocks of school buildings. From our windows we could observe the girls at their lessons across the way. They were girls of between twelve and fifteen, neatly and cleanly dressed in blue skirts and white shirts, quiet and well-behaved. In fact all about Taegu was very different from my imaginings, for it had been described at best as 'the back passage of the world', and its people as filthy. On the ground floor of our building meals of army rations were served on payment of forty cents. Telephones were available giving an immediate service to Tokyo, and the three or four agency men detailed 'to hold the fort' were enjoying the temporary respite from the more usual urgencies of their jobs. A quite useless P.1.0. major, whose almost complete unawareness of his job had nearly earned him death at the hands of the volatile Frank Owen, now radiated good will. Taegu was a wholly delightful sight to my eyes. I assumed that few of my colleagues could have done much travelling off the beaten tracks of the world, or that they had been blinded by war. Most of them were too young, anyway, to remember the world before aeroplanes made travelling a thing of the past. Taegu was the first place I had seen in Korea without the marks of war, and it was also the last. Its bridges still spanned the broad Naktong unbroken. Bullock waggons rumbled ponderously over its cobbles and concrete and dust roads unruffled by the roaring military vehicles. Its cattle market was filled with lean cattle of fair quality, and with equally lean humanity. Taegu was alive. In the water fl.owing in the deep gutters long lines of women crouched over their washing, and long crocodiles of schoolchildren scurried across the dangerous roads under the nervous escorts of their masters and mistresses.

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With Monty Parrot, a New Zealander whose assignment was normally Hong Kong, I explored happily, glad that the lack of transport forced us to walk. It reminded me of Paraguay, and I think that it would make a very fair comparison. From what I had seen of the people, their homes, and their cleanliness even under the dust clouds, I thought their standards were higher than those of the average G.I. Taegu has a more substantial appearance than most places in Korea. My impression was that brick and concrete predominated over the dwellings of wood and thatch and tin which inevitably fringe the main township and form no small part of its interior. The shops were good. We could watch potters at work, and carpenters, the makers of the straw tatami mats, the workers in leather. And fruit, especially the large rosy and sweet juicy apples, abounded. With Monty I climbed to the cemetery on a hillside near the British Mission where Christopher Buckley and Ian Morrison were buried. Randolph Churchill, foraging suddenly in his gear, had brought forth a military tie and handed it to me. " This was Christopher's. You might like to have it." I wore it from that time as a talisman, and with the sentimental feeling that this article of Buckley's was being carried into the forefront of this war, where, in my experience of him, Buckley had always been. At Taegu I made the acquaintance of some of the Eighth Army and Fifth Air Force staffs for the first and last time, for I am by nature a stranger to such places, and in this war more so than ever. The enormous glamour build-up of the official reports, seemingly written by advertising 'copy' writers rather than trained intelligence officers, made all material suspect unless actually personally observed. A strict censorship now shrouded all new developments and plans, but it was not a true military censorship. All that happened was that the chief P.I.O. would ask correspondents not to mention various troops and movements, and would hold back information. Meanwhile Tokyo and other headquarters would let all this information through. As a result few observed the censorship demands, and many rows were in the making. It was rumoured at this time that two expeditions were about

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to set forth, but no one knew for certain where or when, or had the least faith in the assurance of the P.l.O that we would be advised of the plans in good time. For a day or two it seemed that another 'Inchon' on the east coast was under way, probably Wonsan, especially as the marines were now reported to be re-embarking from Pusan. Meanwhile the South Korean column was forging ahead north of the Parallel, apparently without specific orders to do or not to do so, and a further advance in the centre and on the west coast appeared imminent. Young pilots returning from their daily missions had firsthand information of the 1st Cavalry Division concentrating in the area of the frontier town of Kaesong. By 8th October patrols had officially crossed the Parallel in this area without opposition, while the South Koreans were at the approaches to the east coast port of Wonsan. There was also aerial photographic evidence that the North Koreans were preparing some sort of defensive positions in the region of Haeju, whence they had begun their original attack against South Korea in June. But the unreliability of Air Force reports was already becoming apparent. At this time their claims of enemy tanks destroyed were being checked, and proving wildly false, and the number of bridges and trucks constantly being knocked out added up to impossible figures. I found some disquiet in the minds of senior officers, not only in this regard, but in the excessive use of the air force as artillery. They were frankly uneasy. Close support was being demanded on a wildly extravagant scale, and a senior officer said to me: "The infantry must learn to rely on their own fire power. Goddam, the enemy has nothing! " It was clear that the air support of these last days would be difficult to maintain, and I went into the facts and figures with Air Force intelligence officers. Thirty-eight fighter-bomber groups would have been necessary to give equivalent support on the Naktong River Line. They were anxious also about the vulnerability of Japan, and had one eye, as it were, over their shoulders. "Japan is wide open if the Soviet comes in," they said. "And there's not much we could do about it." But on the morning of 8th October, when I had the news of patrols across the Parallel, I decided that it was time for me

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to be present, and I got a lift out to the airport. Tom Laister had come in, fretting about the delay in the arrival of his 'bodies', or any tools to work with in establishing a British Public Relations organisation. The 29th Brigade was still far away on the water, and few imagined that it would arrive in time. I was glad, at any rate, of Tom's company. My cold was better, but I had not lost the fear that air travel would bring back the sinus pains. It had to be faced. We decided to fly up to Seoul together, check on the new headquarter locations, and hitch-hike northwards by any means available.

CHAPTER TEN

ACROSS THE PARALLEL I

IT WAS nearly nine o'clock at night when Tom Laister and I finally found an aircraft to take us to Kimpo. It had been a ghastly day. There is no proper organisation for passengers. Incoming and outgoing pilots report spasmodically and casually as the fancy moves them. Priorities may be wangled and chopped and changed hourly. Travellers disappear mysteriously from time to time and do not reappear. By trying to do things the right way anyone might easily wait a week while fifty aircraft a day go empty in their direction. The waiting is, in fact, almost as harrowing as the flying. Tom and I being comparative newcomers had not fully realised all these things, and we had been further lulled into certainty of a lift by a cheerful colonel commanding the cargo aircraft transport. Promising us a plane within an hour, he promptly disappeared, leaving a kind of smile behind him like the Cheshire cat, which grinned at us throughout the day. We stood, dawdled, or raced frenziedly from one side of the large field to the other, and argued with the sergeants in charge of the passenger and cargo offices for precisely twelve hours. During all this time we were constantly warned to stay within call and not to eat in case we were missed. Our names headed the official lists. They had headed them since morning. Finally, when we had been on the point of seeking a corner in which we might sleep, a sergeant said casually: "There's a C 47 leaving in ten minutes. Thirteen of youse get board." And he read out the first thirteen names. A babel of complaint immediately began to rumble from the remaining thirty or more throats. The pilot, a large, easygoing-looking chap with a round, expectant face, said: "Sorry. Thirteen's the load. I'm carrying a lotter mail." 109

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"Thank God for a sane pilot!" breathed Tom, for most of them are very careless or too good-natured to refuse anybody. We trailed out over the dark ground, grateful at last for movement. The night was black and cold under stars like ice particles. Two or three hundred yards out on the field a yellow puff of light showed from the open door of a C47. The pilot checked our names and we climbed in. The machine was crowded literally from floor to ceiling. A huge pile of mail bags filled the forward and central part of the fuselage to within two feet of the roof. A score of tough-looking G.I.s, enormous in their parachute harness, dark, unshaven, chewing, sprawled over the metal seating which ran the length of the aircraft on both sides. The pilot managed to crawl in on the heels of the last of the thirteen, and there we were all crammed together as he surveyed his stuffed aircraft with the mildly expectant expression which seemed immovable on his plump face. "Well, say," he said, and tilted his hat forward to scratch behind an ear. Various senior officers who had also waited most of the day began to show signs of dismay. "Suppose they all gotta go," drawled the pilot in a voice like a weary gramophone record played with an old pin. All at once there was a positive roar of rage from a whitehaired army colonel : "Goddam you sons of bitches," he roared. "They've got their goddam cots!" "Jeez ! " said the pilot. We all surged to look at this new horror. Three G.l.s sprawled chewing and quite unruffled by the colonel's outburst. Their heavy iron cots, the like of which none of us had seen or enjoyed in all Korea, were roughly stowed aft. "We gotta right ter sleep, ain't we?" From this point the dialogue is confused and unreportable. The pilot gave an imitation of Pontius Pilate which even the fury of the colonel failed to impress. The cots were finally heaved out by common consent of all save their owners, and a tirade of obscenity, surprisingly unimaginative, passed unheeded.

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"Where all youse guys come from? " asked the pilot when the hubbub had abated. There was a confused mumble. The old colonel, realising that the easy-going pilot could not be persuaded to further action, climbed like a resolute old crab onto the tops of the mail bags and inched bis way forward. It was now clear to us all that the pilot would kill himself and all of us with him rather than be 'weak' enough to stick to the rules and face the task of reducing his load to the maximum. Of course, we should have had the moral courage to get off. Freddie Sparks wouldn't have thought twice about it. But a kind of fatalism grips you at such moments. Besides, this was the everyday pattern of flying to which we must accustom ourselves until, like Freddie, we cried 'enough' and numbered ourselves among the non-starters. I don't know whether I thought I should die a hideous death wedged in with this crowd of men and mailbags, but I couldn't feel my personal 'Providence' quite so close and taking care of me as usual. Twenty men should have left that aircraft. At any rate, I had forgotten about my sinus. The pilot clawed his way forward on his stomach over the mail bags, mumbling that he thought he'd get her off O.K., and finally edged himself through the cabin door. Someone pulled the steps inboard and secured the doors. I watched the chewing faces, and it was curious how the jaw movements revealed thought, slowing, pause, faster. I don't think anyone was happy, or even casual about it. The engines roared to life, idled, roared, raced to fearful climaxes, and died down, interminably. At last the machine lumbered forward, lurched herself into position. The engines raced swiftly and suddenly to hold an appalling and agonising crescendo, while the machine vibrated like a chained bird, seeming to cling to the ground against her will. "Jump take-off! " murmured a little dark G.I. next to me. Every jaw paused on the gum. With a vast heave the pilot let go, and we were off- and up. Jaws began slowly to chew. The aircraft had the feel of being terribly heavy, of climbing painfully, banking. I visualised the surrounding hills thoughtfully. In five minutes we should be dead or safe for an hour and a bit until landing. Time to relax and wait for it. The

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engine roar was a burden on my ears, and suddenly with a whizz a piece of the fuselage panelling flew away behind the small dark G.I. next to me. He gave a gasp, his face ghastly white, and eyes like onyx. I grabbed his arm. "It's all right," I said. "It wasn't fastened properly. " The incident was a relief, amusing those who looked on from across the ship. Obscenity began to ooze slowly from the G.I. 's mouth. It was, at any rate, 'goddam cold!' with the panel out. I had found some fruit-drops and shared them with Tom. "Only an hour," I said. "And we're up now. We've only to come down. " Tom groaned. We had been in the air perhaps half an hour, mostly silent, men sprawling, chins sunk on chests. There was a movement forward. The second pilot, whom we had not previously seen, was saying something to the old colonel, and no one pretended they didn't care. The colonel crawled towards us a yard or two and called out : "We're going in to land at Suwon for ten minutes. Some message or other. Nothing wrong." A groan went up and a chorus of 'goddams'. Half an hour later we landed heavily but safely at Suwon. Someone opened the door to get a breath of air and a look at the sky. A sergeant looked in from outside and laughed. No one got in or got out, and then the whole ghastly ordeal of the jump take-off, the painful climb, the heavy landing. I don't know how many times a friendly Providence stands for this kind of thing. I feel a great admiration for Freddie Sparks. Tom Laister was fuming. As we walked away from the aircraft he said in measured words: "We are very lucky to be alive." "Goddam," I said. II

Alan Whicker had established himself in his usual brilliant manner in a comfortable house he had somehow discovered in the heart of Seoul city. Bernie Kaplan, Georgie Herman and Alex Valentine shared this fortune with him and were permitting themselves the illusion that here they were for the

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duration. They had a houseboy, a cook, and even more luscious and equally useful amenities, I shouldn't wonder. Alan certainly had the look of a man who has bathed within the week. It was hard to drag him away, but I did, for, of course, he knew well enough that it was only a dream. "Oh, why did I have to run into you just when we're all happy! " Alan growled. But he packed up his belongings, gave five hundred of my yen to the houseboy for distribution and remembrance, looked long and lovingly at his mattress under a heap of eiderdowns, scribbled a note to Alex and the others, and we jeeped off. The Eighth Army had begun to establish a headquarters in a vast block of relatively undamaged buildings, and here Tom and I had slept, chilled to our bones on the bare floorboards of an enormous windowless room. Communications were working vaguely and were promised to be going full blast within twenty-four hours. "We're here for keeps," said the chief signals officer. "You've nothing to worry about. We'll clear all your stuff." No doubt at all that he meant it. He was an obliging chap, and he lent us a jeep to take us to corps headquarters established in a field twenty miles or so to the north. Tom Laister had decided to stay put, and Alan and I embarked together out of Seoul, glad to be on the move and on the job again. Alan had already made one sortie across the Imjin River. It was a terrific drive in a jeep, he said, but it should be an easy hitch-hike. The whole route swarmed with transport of all kinds, wildly driven trucks of the express 'Red Ball' convoys swirling the bullock waggons, and all civilians, from the narrow roads in terror. The negro drivers of many of these trucks drove at alarming speeds in dust clouds which never abated, and their faces, when we glimpsed them, were hidden under yellow opaque masks of dust. Our jeep driver was as mad as the maddest, but by a miracle failed to kill us or anyone else, though he smashed two small handcarts to flying fragments, scattering all the worldly goods of two families of 'Gooks'. I realised that they had to H

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be 'Gooks', for otherwise these essentially kind and generous Americans would not have been able to kill them indiscriminately or smash up their homes and poor belongings. By calling them 'Gooks' they were robbed of humanity. When he reached the field in which corps had been located we found it deserted except for half a dozen men in an overcrowded signals truck. Corps had lifted its tents at dawn and was thirty or forty miles on-maybe more. What of the enemy? No one knew. Our driver was ready to take us on, but we felt that the goodwill of the chief signals officer was not to be despised, and we stuck to the spirit rather than the letter of his loan of a jeep. The driver waved a casual hand, shook his head sadly, and with a "Youse guys crazy! " roared off homeward. A helicopter landed alongside us, simply having a look at things, and regretted it couldn't help us. Hopefully we stood by the dusty roadside craving some negro pity, which presently came. It was a difficult hitch. Five hours later, jolting in the backs of a great variety of wildly driven trucks, and still clinging to our sleeping bags and typewriters, we came to the crest of the hills and looked down upon a magnificent stretch of the winding Imjin River. The thick scrub covering the hillsides blazed with the burnished red-bronze splendour of autumn leaf. Tall, frail trees rose elegantly on the lower slopes to veil and frame the silver river in brilliant foliage. It was a glorious day, and indeed for a month now the sky had been unbroken blue. A line of traffic a full five miles long was wedged nose to tail from the river bank up and over the hills, and far behind us, and we could see a line of vehicles bumping slowly over the rough unmade track up from the river on the further bank. Two ferries heaved by ropes were moving the convoys both ways six trucks at a time. From now on it would need all our energy, all our strength and ingenuity, and all the hours of most days and nights to keep up with the developments, and somehow to get back to somewhere every twenty-four hours to send our stories. Each day and night would have to be considered on its merits. There could not be a base. We had become tramps, and we had better learn the technique and like it.

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We strolled down the hill and under the massive fortress gate of stone, crowned with a canopy of elaborate woodwork which guarded the village on the banks of the Imjin. There had been few signs of enemy anywhere, and the crossing had been routine. The whole countryside was peaceful and without menace, for the escaping army- if they were escaping-would now be speeding like ghosts under cover of the hills and the darkness to some rendezvous in the north. There was great activity on the river as the bulldozers heaved the soil into new positions and the bridge-builders made steady progress. Meanwhile ferocious-looking teams of 'bandits', with glowing fierce moustachioed faces under Chinese straw hats, hauled us across on the ferry, chanting wild and rhythmic songs qS they heaved on the ropes. It was late afternoon when we discovered corps established in a school building near a place called Munsan-ni. A tent had been allotted to war correspondents, and there were half a dozen camp beds grouped round a petrol stove. The P.1.0. said that the teletype would be working by evening, and he thought they might transmit direct to Tokyo if the Eighth Army were not yet ready to handle the messages. There was little information available, and we felt that we must press on to the Cavalry Division at Kaesong to get the latest news and find the general form. Nevertheless our weariness lured us to earmark two vacant camp beds and to leave our stuff against the night. I should have known better. Alan, indeed, was dubious at the time, and should have been as firm about it as I had been about his 'luxury apartment' in the morning. But there was no need for pessimism. The P.1.0. gave us a can of rations, which we heated up and ate with mugs of coffee. I could never eat more than a spoonful or two of the U.S. rations, which I found stodgy, but Alan had the appetite of a horse to set against my thirst for coffee, and we managed well together. He could always eat four-fifths of any tinful, and I would drink four-fifths of the coffee. But I would have given a great deal then and in the days ahead for some plain corned beef and biscuit instead of these innumerable refinements of war, hamburgers, chicken and vegetables, sweet

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biscuits, salt biscuits, little tins of jam, fruit salad, apricots, and a wealth of stuff, too varied to catalogue, which presently strewed the roadsides of North Korea. We selected a few cans to take with us and hiked forward in a liaison jeep which we persuaded our way. The Cavalry Division were in a large military barrack building on the outskirts of the considerable frontier town and communications centre of Kaesong. Hal Steward, the bluff, welcoming P.1.0. major, seemed more alive and outwardly helpful than any P.J.O. we had met. A dozen typewriters, mainly for his staff writers, were already clacking away, elaborating and recording the deeds of the Division, and the major himself was no laggard in this respect. A stove was going full blast. A half-dozen vast, empty, windowless rooms were available for correspondents. Signals were functioning fine, we were assured, and this, in fact, was a war correspondent's heaven minus transport. We cursed ourselves and especially me, for leaving our stuff behind. In the operations room an efficient officer put us fully in the picture. The division was teed up and on its toes. In a couple of days the road to the enemy capital of Pyongyang would be wide open. But the facts were that the Cavalry Division had produced itself complete and ready for action two hundred miles from the Naktong River in ten days. This was creditable going over mountainous country and over bad roads, even without an enemy, and the officer admitted they hadn't killed anyone much on the way. Patrols crossing the Parallel at various points reported light resistance, minor road blocks, and occasional mortar fire. The 8th Cavalry Regiment in the centre would open up the main road to the heavily defended key town and communications centre of Kumchon about twenty miles north. This was the first phase in the advance against Pyongyang. The 5th Cavalry Regiment with the British 27th Brigade in support would make a wide encircling sweep on the right flank and converge on Kumchon to join the 8th Cavalry, while the 7th Cavalry Regiment on the left would make all speed westward and northward, by-passing Kumchon, and holding the main road north of the town in order to trap the large body of defenders- reputed ready to fight to the last man.

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All this was due to kick-off at breakfast-time, and the Cavalry Division would gladly take care of us and our stores. That was the position and we were exhilarated by it, for our tramping might not go unrewarded. At this time we had been the best part of fourteen hours on the road from Seoul, and we now had to get back about twenty miles to our beds at corps. A jeep lifted us the first five miles, and then had to leave us at a turn off. The night was bitterly cold, and there was no moon. A small group of peasant homes by the roadside were uninviting, and we could not be sure of welcome by night so close to enemy territory. Besides, the whole countryside was full of guerillas. We stood close in to the walls of a cottage to get the warmth from the fires blazing under the floors, and fed with brushwood by an aged woman who regarded us without a sign of emotion. Somehow the night began to ·seem ominous, as nights sometimes do, and there had not been a vehicle for half an hour. At last an empty ambulance came by and lifted us another five miles to a crossroads. In the sombre darkness we could see the loom of a village two or three hundred yards down a side turning upon the rising ground. Obviously it would be in American hands, but this would not render it much less dangerous. We dared not shine a torch, for a false movement might easily have attracted a burst of bullets from a trigger-happy sentry, half awakened from a doze. So we walked firmly and purposefully in the centre of the road, our ears straining for a challenge, and cursing ourselves that we had not asked the password. The Americans are very keen about passwords. Presently we arrived in the village unchallenged. Casting about, we saw a glimmer under a door, and made our way noisily towards it. Still unchallenged, we pushed open the door of a building to discover about twenty men sleeping, and two awake, a signals section. They welcomed us, warmed us, and roused a driver, who, with the utmost good nature, undertook to drive us to corps. He knew the way, he said. Half an hour later we were in Dragon country, a good ten miles eastward and off the line of advance. Hiking, one does not memorise the road as when driving- but I had had a very definite feeling that we had taken the wrong fork within five

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minutes of our start. The country looked strangely deserted and unknown. Alan said he thought so, too, but hadn't wanted to upset the driver who seemed very sure of where he was going. Staccato bursts of machine-gun fire from the hills on both sides and shots from ahead seemed to clinch the matter. It might be safer to go forward and try to find a way round than to go back. A bridge loomed suddenly in our lights, with people scurrying from our path. We crossed the bridge over a narrow stream none of us had seen before and roared up a hill through a village. A score of men stumbled out of a spinney on the hill crest with guards at their heels, urging them on. The guards were South Koreans, but at the time we didn't feel too sure even of that. The bursts of firing were near, and with one mind we turned back. It was an eerie stretch of road to the turn, and we didn't see anyone living or dead, but now and then a flare from a hillside warned that it was not so deserted as it looked. From the maps at the Cavalry Division we knew that this should be South Korean country, but we did not get much comfort from that. It was three in the morning when we reached corps. The stove was going, and we typed our messages by candlelight. Days like this, except that normally there would be some danger in most of them, were to be typical of many of the weeks ahead.

m I found Freddie Sparks sitting on a large smooth stone under a tree in the midst of the spacious forecourt outside the Cavalry Division headquarters. A hundred jeeps stood awaiting their owners and passengers, and Freddie was ruminating on the problem of which of these jeeps should be persuaded to bear his valuable carcase. It was a happy meeting. Alan had just completed his second breakfast, for we had left corps at first light and by good fortune had arrived in time to fortify ourselves more amply against whatever the day might hold. Where to go and how to get there was always problem number one. Alan and I were 'easy'. There was a choice of the three roads, and at this early stage all presented good

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possibilities. We proposed to see as much as possible of them all. A dozen or more of our friends had already departed in twos or threes, while one or two harbouring secret plans had either crept away stealthily or were pretending that they were in no hurry to be off. Freddie said : "A very interesting character wearing a yellow scarf, and carrying a knobbly stick, affected, I believe, by the fierce-skirted tribesmen occupying the northern regions of the unsinkable aircraft carrier, where you poor fellows have your homes, is now closeted with the general." We encouraged Freddie to continue his discourse, not only because the sound of his rich deep voice was pleasing, but also because we perceived he had something of moment to impart. "I have ascertained," said Freddie, "that his name is Harris; that he is the commander of the 7th Cavalry Regiment; that his jeep confronts us at a distance of twelve paces; that he is up to something. I am now, my friends, innocent as I must appear, lying in wait for him." During this very friendly and generous speech, which most clearly extended cordial hospitality towards us, Freddie's extraordinarily mobile, fleshy face and great rumbling voice revealed a keen anticipation. It was as though the dogs of war with sterns erect and nostrils twitching promised a good run over good country. It remained for us to follow. "We don't want to spoil your chances," I began. "We certainly do," said Alan forthrightly. At this moment the yellow-scarfed colonel appeared, leaping nimbly down the steps from the main building as Freddie leapt with equal rapidity to meet him. A split second later we were all aboard the colonel's jeep and speeding into Kaesong. Freddie made introductions and we all shook hands. "Glad to have you gentlemen," said the colonel. His greyblue eyes were very keen, appraising with the utmost directness, yet friendly. Grey brows lent distinction to a strong, wellformed oval face that was yet almost womanly in its contours, and gentle. Whatever else the colonel might be, he was a person of quality and something of a dandy.

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But Colonel William Harris-Billy Harris, as I presently came to call him in friendship-was nobody's fool and not an easy man. His gentle face and quiet appearance masked an iron purpose and determination. And he was a disciplinarian. "I'm picking up one of my officers at the hospital. Slightly wounded yesterday. He'll be ready. Then we'll be off." There was pride in the colonel's voice as he said this, and began to tell us of his plans over his shoulder. He was bubbling over with enthusiasm like a schoolboy, and whatever he had had to say to the general must have gone down very well. "You must stay with us," he said. "We'll look after you." Unfortunately our jobs make it impossible to stay with anybody, for we are doomed to everlasting tramphood upon the face of the earth. We were at the hospital, the jeep swooping up to the front porch like a bronco. Lieutenant-Colonel Huff, a battalion commander, with his left arm in plaster and a sling, was ready and waiting. He is a big man carrying too much weight for an athlete, but carrying it with a kind of zest which distinguishes some fattening men. He was light on his feet. He squeezed in with us, made light of his flesh wound, and was either a first-class actor or dead keen to be back across the Yesong River, whence we were bound. He had exchanged a friendly greeting with his colonel, warm yet respectful, and said he felt 'fine'. His face was rugged, and weathered a shade or two deeper than brick red under the remains of a head of curly ginger hair which gave him a fiery look. I think we all felt happy in this company. It was the first of many days I spent with Colonel Harris's 'Garry Owens', the wearers of the yellow scarf, and with it the kind of regimental pride, and the burgeoning of a tradition, which is most rare in the United States Army. Colonel Billy Harris nurtured this pride and tradition, and gloried in it, as a gardener tends the first buds of spring. Wherever we went, the men were aware and proud of their colonel, greeting him with an enthusiasm which was always healthy, and often not without a trace of soldierly bearing. Indeed they looked more like soldiers than any others I had seen.

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Harris combined imagination with action. With one daring bound he had crossed the wide Yesong River, chancing his luck across the seven-hundred-yard-long latticed steel cantilever bridge which even the North Koreans might have mined or blown. "To date," said the colonel, "this regiment has covered 196 miles in 102 hours, and we're going strong. " The bridge, a formidable-looking object even without stray bullets winging in from the hills, carried a single-line narrowgauge railway track, and the engineers, urged by the colonel, who admitted that he loved 'playing trains', had tinkered about with a small rail car with a Diesel motor and got it going. We piled aboard and chugged slowly and dangerously over the creaking structure, with hawk's-eye views of the river and its sand banks through the horrible gaping holes beneath us. Three times we had to stop while a bold man made a reconnaissance of the rails and the missing boards and wedged them all a bit tighter. We didn't need Freddie's help to imagine the sensations of hurtling through one of these large cracks, and of this infernal machine, as he called it, leaving the rails. It lurched at times fearsomely. But we were a cheerful crew, speeding through a narrow cutting where the line ran between steep close hills from which we could have been massacred with the greatest of ease, and out into the broad open plain where the peasants were working without so much as a glance at our quaint progress. They may have felt rather like strangers in an auction room, whose slightest glance or ill-timed cough might saddle them with a massive wardrobe or a set of fish-servers, or, in this case, a bullet. The regiment had leapt ahead about ten miles during the night and was established in the once select Korean holiday resort of Paekchon' just below the Parallel. Our course at this stage was a few points north of west. We left the rail car at the remains of Paekchon Station and walked three or four hundred yards to the regimental headquarters, which had been established in a guest-house with a fine mosaic circular bath large enough for a score or more to wallow in comfort. There 1 Not to be confused with Pakchon where the 27th Brigade held the hinge beyond the Chongchon River. See Part Three.

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were good hot sulphur springs, but something had gone wrong with the works, and the colonel regretted that there would not be time to get them going, and the regiment cleaned up. But Freddie, Alan and I discovered a couple of dozen G.I.s in a rival guest-house down the road washing in a mixture very much like ink, steaming furiously, and enjoying themselves. In the colonel's sanctum with his 'brigade major', his battalion commanders, and 'G.S.O. 3' equivalents, the colonel unfolded his plans and helped us to generous portions of Bourbon. The general had agreed on his solution to his supply problems, and there was nothing to stop the Garry Owens going ahead at full speed, unless perhaps it might be that the enemy had other ideas. But the enemy scarcely entered anyone's calculations as an obstacle. Even now we crawled to the roof to watch the fighters rocketing down upon a nearby hillside to disperse a group they had previously reported. Whatever enemy-or, more truly, hostile peasants- might be in the vicinity could not offer much of a threat to a full-strength regiment with all supporting arms. Billy Harris had his engineers bringing up supplies round from Inchon by water, and up the Yesong estuary to the bridgehead. This was his brainwave. By this means he had made himself more or less independent of the division and was designing a 'private operation' on his own. The landing craft and rafts coming up the estuary were under spasmodic small-arms fire from the north bank, but could give back more than they got. Even a squadron of tanks was on the way, and one of these, breaking loose under tow, fought a lone battle with the enemy as it drifted towards the sea at the mercy of the current, and only able to bring its machine guns to bear when chance permitted. When they were rescued and towed safely in they said they hadn't dared to fire their main armament in case they sank. Meanwhile a flat car service had been improvised, and the narrow-gauge railway with its Diesel motor was dragging the supplies up to the railhead at Paekchon, and the colonel had planned three or four bounds ahead. "Within forty-eight hours I'll be astride the main road north of Kumchon, and the cork'll be in the bottle·!" said the colonel.

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And it certainly looked like it. Here was enthusiasm, energy, ingenuity, and troops with their hearts seemingly in the right place, even if their training and ideas of warfare were lacking or peculiar. Given any military ability in the field, the Garry Owens would justify their colonel's pride. Until now the enemy had been disregarded. The division had moved forward without bothering about its flanks, and the hills overlooking the valleys may have been seething with guerillas. The odd shots which accompanied the whole advance had not been deemed worthy of investigation; the minor impediments, the boulders and stones which appeared upon the narrow-gauge line, the easily discernible primitive box mines on the roads, were brushed aside. In the midst of all these small excitements the headquarters commandant produced an astonishing meal of roast duck, roast potatoes and apple sauce. The commandant was a massive man with a great happy face, rust-red and beaming with welcome and pride, and possessed of that bustling energy which distinguishes energetic fat men. Not that he was really fat yet, but he would be a veritable Falstaff when retirement trapped him. I can see him now in a score of places, in fields, in villages and farmyards 'rustling up the fowls' for the pot, his broad smiling face, hands cupping his lips to bawl: "Hi, Tommy! Roast duck! Don't forget the Garry Owens." And the colonel by his side, a slight figure, faintly amused at his camp commandant, a friendly wave of the inevitable walking-stick, and that indefinable air of distinction, of the Dandy. "You're always welcome, Tommy," said the colonel. And they all echoed it. It was true from this day forth wherever I met them. And the colonel was no niggard with his praise. He had seen the Argylls, and they had impressed him greatly. Once, when fretting to get his men to deploy and thrust forward, he turned and waved to me as he stood on a bridge, dusty from head to foot, isolated, a brave figure, and somehow splendid. He waved his stick like a Claymore, and called out very loud and clear: "Send me the Argylls ! Tell the general. Tell anyone. But send me the Argylls ! "

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It was nonsense, of course, though he meant it, meant it as the tribute it was. But this day at Paekchon, in the flimsy house of wood and paper in the Japanese manner, was my first experience as the guest of the Garry Owens, and the future was never further ahead than the night and the morning. And if I over-praised them, as I often did, I felt justified, for there was little enough to praise. The colonel insisted that we should stay the night. There was an airstrip within two hundred yards, and he would have a liaison plane which would take our messages in the morning and deliver them for certain. Freddie had nothing to worry about. Alan was dubious, for he needed normally to be on communications twice in the twenty-four hours, if not more. I thought it was worth it, or might be. We stayed. It was a quiet, uneventful night for those who slept, and Freddie and I were of their number. For the rest, apparentlyand Alan, inclined to be indignant about our 'wonder', was among them-it was a case of 'all hell let loose', and the headquarters itself under heavy attack. "Damn it all," said Alan, "you two were sleeping liks logs while I was frightened out of my wits. " "Come off it," we said. But this only added fuel to Alan's indignation. He had been under night attack, and he was not going to be deprived of full value because of a couple of disbelieving sleepers, clearly destined to have their throats cut by guerillas unless chaps like himself stayed awake and kept watch. It is true that I once slept through an air raid in the First World War, but air raids then were minor affairs, and it may be true that I slept through this 'heavy night attack' on the headquarters. As Joad might have said: "It depends what you mean by 'hell', 'loose' and 'heavy'." It is certain that neither Freddie nor I heard a sound. The headquarters when we awoke in the sunlit dawn was unscathed. The cook, despite the alleged disturbances of the night, had piping hot coffee ready, a mess of 'scrambled' dried egg, and frizzed-up bacon. But Alan was hammering away on the typewriter, tousled-haired (most unusual), and revealing

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signs of excitement. Freddie and I decided to do some detective work on the story while taking care not to hurt anyone else's feelings. We had all three crawled into our sleeping bags in an empty apartment on the first floor. We had each smoked a cigarette and exchanged a drowsy comment or two on the kindness of our hosts. Within half an hour we must all have been asleep. Previously we had been summoned to interviews every half an hour with the colonel, who was determined that we should be 'in the picture' and work for our livings. In the operations room we had heard the battalion commanders briefed on their night and dawn roles. Patrols had gone out. We had been slightly astonished that two or three Korean 'camp followers' rumbled not too silently with what sounded like subdued 'laughter' in one corner of the room and seemed to come and go at will. There were no security precautions, and there was little of the orderly military arrangement and aspect of the kind of brigade headquarters to which I was accustomed. But it seemed to work well enough in the circumstances. At about 9 p.m. a report came in from 'peasant' sources that five .hundred enemy were assembling ready to attack through our positions in an attempt to gain the road north. This village lay about four thousand yards on our left flank. The story sounded unlikely, and frankly I didn't believe it. Neither did Freddie, and neither did the G.S.0. 3 equivalent. "Call it fifty?" he had speculated, looking up at me. "Fair enough," I agreed. But he didn't send a patrol to have a look, and he did order two batteries of artillery-105 mm.-to bring down fire and smash up the village- in case. It struck me as odd. Nothing developed in the next two hours, and nothing was expected of interest before the leading battalion began to advance at first light in the wake of its night patrols. And nothing much even then. If there were hostile groups over here in this western pocket they would be isolated, and at worst would attempt to cut across obliquely, avoiding trouble -one would have thought-to rejoin the main body or bodies of North Korean troops. Or else they would simply lie low.

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Having weighed up all this, we went to bed, and that was that. But according to Alan the most terrific fire enlivened the early hours, and he leapt from his bed imagining hordes of 'Dancing Dervishes' descending in hideous profusion upon us. They were firing steadily, and it wasn't in the least funny, Alan said. At any rate, fearing for his throat (but not caring two hoots for ours, apparently!), he had spent the night in the operations room. Nothing tangible had, in fact, happened that we could discover, except that the two batteries had duly plastered the village as directed and reduced it to rubble and ashes. There had been a certain amount of small-arms fire in the small hours. While we ate our breakfast a messenger announced that the air strip two hundred yards away had been 'captured'. It was a peculiarly silent capture, and we didn't believe that either. Investigation revealed that there were two or three snipers hidden in the surrounding rice paddies, and it was not very healthy to idle round about. At any rate the liaison aircraft which was to have taken our messages was warned off, and the colonel detailed a jeep to take us to division by road. When we reached division we learned that the leading battalion of the Garry Owens had straddled the road and secured two more bridgeheads further up the Yesong River. Everyone at division also had the story of the night attack, the capture of the airstrip, and its recapture. It all made lurid reading, and Freddie and I were the only two reporters who didn't report it. For, after all, we had been there, and we knew absolutely nothing of it. This was not the first time we were to find ourselves reported under heavy attack, both sleeping and waking, and without any knowledge of it. Nevertheless we had enjoyed our night with our friends. If there was not an enemy, so much the better, and I did not understand the necessity to invent one. Meanwhile, nothing exciting had happened on the right and centre. Unopposed, the cavalry had advanced in the wake of their patrols cautiously across the Parallel, and there might not be a drop in Colonel Billy Harris's bottle. There was a general sense of anti-climax, and we had had the good fortune to 'scoop' the only excitement on that day and night!

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IV

The night at Paekchon with the Garry Owens was the night of 11th-12th October. I had been in Korea two or three days less than a month. Its impact upon me, the sense of filling up my life, living my life, the whole impression upon my mind and emotions, then-and it persists now-is of an immeasurable period. Men I could not have known for more than a day or two, or even for a few hours, loom now in my thoughts more intimately than others in the normal world I have known for months. According to my diary I could not have stayed more than two nights with the engineers near Kimpo. Even now this seems absurd. In fact, had I not kept a meticulous diary, and sent a daily cable with a date line showing exactly where I was, I could not believe that seven days after the night with Colonel Harris we were in Pyongyang. A week is no measure of the events. This was no ordinary week. It was not particularly dangerous, and in the Second World War there were many weeks of sustained shot and shell. Nevertheless I do not remember time taking on this quality of timelessness, of an 'eternity'. I do not know how to explain it, except that although· it went swiftly, in the same way it didn't go at all, or at least so much less of it than one thought was 'used up', for after an enormous amount of living perhaps only one day and night had passed. It was like living in a dream which appears to cover weeks, months or years, and which, in reality, occupies seconds or minutes. It is not in the least surprising to me that men and women sometimes 'age ten years' in a single night. Probably they lived ten years in that night. I find that I have constantly to discipline myself in writing this book. If I were to give full value to the impressions in my mind a chapter might easily become a book, and I should find myself embarked upon a kind of 'Swann's Way' of war. I am forced to attempt to consider weeks as periods of the seven days which they each contained, however this may conflict with my emotions, and my 'certainty' that to call them weeks conveys a completely wrong impression. The explanation is, I think, that days, nights, weeks and months were without the boundaries of routine,

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of meals, of getting up and going to bed, of living somewhere. At any rate, it seemed to us all at the time that the Cavalry Division was making very slow progress, but in fact to cover the ground in seven days over narrow valley roads, over rivers with broken bridges, over fords churned to quagmires feet deep in glutinous mud, is good going. It is every bit of 120 miles. Following the 8th Cavalry Regiment up the main' road on the centre line on the morning of 12th October we all felt that, unless they got a move on, they would never reach Kumchon through the dark menacing chasms of the great rugged hills, which soared, precipitous and ominous, above the road. The 105-mm. and 155-mm. batteries were pounding at an unseen enemy ten thousand yards ahead, and the fighters swooping down upon the glowing scrub of the hillsides lit the ridges with lines of smoke and flame. But nothing came back. On the right flank the 5th Cavalry, attempting to sweep round into Kunchon on about a thirty-five mile arc, and jockeying for position with the 27th Commonwealth Brigade, seemed hopelessly stuck, tanks and huge rescue vehicles with winches and cranes, and hosts of trucks, jammed the mountain roads nose to tail for miles. But no enemy. The occasional crack of a carbine from the red-bronze undergrowth. Nothing more. A private war was in fact developing on the right flank. Brigadier Coad was determined to lead his three battalions, the 27th Commonwealth Brigade, into action, and had at last the necessary permission to do so, and the necessary road priority. But this means nothing to Americans. Road discipline, and all that goes with it, is entirely unknown to them, and the cavalry, regiment vying with regiment, were determined to get in first if they could. It was about noon of 12th October when Alan Whicker and I, having hiked three or four miles north of Kaesong on the 8th Cavalry axis, and finding nothing doing, managed to get across to the right flank. The 27th Brigade were deployed in the foothills, while the Middlesex had got themselves hopelessly entangled with the 5th Cavalry. With an officer of the Middlesex, trying to regain his unit, we jeeped fifteen miles with two wheels usually in the ditch. The wooden bridges over

The first North Korean village unmarked by war (p. 152).

North Korean villagers (p. 152).

,. Yongbyon. "A Patton tank filled up the southern gate . . . ! " (p. 225).

The tragic ruin of Y ongbyon (p. 225).

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the culverts and gullies as we climbed into the hills had mostly caved in under the immense weight of the tanks and heavy trucks. Patton tanks had sheered off the narrow winding road, unable to negotiate the hairpin bends, some losing their tracks, others poised dangerously on the rugged slopes over the ravines. Had the enemy possessed aircraft or even artillery at this or any other time, the transport of whole divisions would have been destroyed, and the whole advance bogged down in utter chaos. It was nose to tail on every road, every day, mile upon mile, and I think that it was the constant struggle to get forward and back along these roads that added greatly to the nightmare timelessness of it all. We could never rest. We never knew where we should be, how we should get there, how we should get back, where we should sleep, and when and if we should eat. An eighteen-hour day of constant struggle, ten or twelve of them fighting against the columns in clouds of dust, five or six on foot with troops, in ditches, one or two getting our stories down, one or two fighting to get them away. Sleep in a field. Perhaps three or four cups of coffee, a spoonful of some concoction out of a tin, or biscuits. And on, over and over again. We could only be sure where we had been yesterday by looking at the previous day's date line. Otherwise yesterday as a day had disappeared, a period without boundaries on this inexorable reel of living. When Alan and I began to make our way back along the choked mountain road on foot the Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the Far East, General Sir John Harding, was striving to get forward to the Middlesex. Generals of this exalted status can usually achieve the impossible, and the next to impossible was duly achieved. Back at brigade headquarters they were greatly cheered about it. At least the 'C.-in-C.' had chosen a good day to realise some of the problems confronting the 27th Brigade. For, apart from anything else, they were not, and never had been, a brigade. They had arrived hurriedly without even battalion transport, without ancillary services, without artillery or tanks; simply two battalions under strength. A week or two later, after the Argylls had suffered their wretched baptism of napalm, the Australian battalion had

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arrived. They moved, and fought, therefore, by the grace and courtesy of the Americans, and that they moved and fought at all is not only a tribute to their own. determination to do so but to the American provision of transport, artillery and tanks at the vital moments. They seldom had the same tanks and the same guns twice running, but, whatever they did have, tried their very best, and often that was very good. As we walked back the sun was setting behind the great jagged ridges, a vast ball of crimson fire glowing on the bronze faces of a company of Australians trying to bash their way forward. All these men of the Commonwealth group impressed us with their magnificent health. Smart, soldierly in bearing, shaven, bronzed, they provided a remarkable contrast with the drab-booted, stubble-chinned American troops, slouching by the roadsides when forced to their feet, and looking like convicts in their drab denims. Brigade headquarters had also a real military appearance, meticulously sited, and with camouflage netting in position over tents and vehicles, and the L of C clearly marked with the brigade sign. There was never the least difficulty in finding them, and, when found, knowing exactly what they were doing, and whatever everyone on their flanks was meant to be doing. It was a most heartening experience. If they were half as good as they looked they would be good, and they were longing to get into the forefront. Alan and I, covered with dust from head to foot, confronted a small group of our glamorous friends from Tokyo, who had accompanied the Commander-in-Chief in his aircraft, and would be returning with him the following day. Randolph, plump, beaming, and spick and span in service dress, had proved himself a thoughtful friend by preserving a precious bottle of Scotch for me. Ward Price, longing to forsake his years and remain with us rather than in Tokyo, greeted me with the warmth of an old friend. If only there had been battle stories to tell we could have got them home for certain in the hands of Randolph and Ward. But there was nothing more than routine descriptive progress reports of the battle of the roads, colourful in a way, but without the meat of war, and too costly at ls. ltd. a word.

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That night, the night of the 12th, is one of the milestones in my story. It was the end of a phase and the beginning of another. It was the last night on which the dozen or so correspondents who conceived it their duty to cover the story with forward troops enjoyed even the meagre amenities of sleeping on the boards of the cold, empty, windowless rooms of the Cavalry Division, and cherished the illusion that messages despatched through the P.I.O. were reaching their newspapers. It was the beginning of a new set of friendships born out of mutual struggles, in ditches, jeeps, on tanks, and when the loan of a blanket, even an old carbon paper or pencil, makes a deep impression; when the loan of a typewriter for half an hour to a distressed colleague looms as an act comparable with Sir Philip Sydney's dying deed, and which no subsequent deed may wholly dissipate. When, in fact, all competition, save only that of getting on communications, merges into comradeship. In its way this night of 12th October was memorable for other reasons. Randolph Churchill, in the nature of things, cannot help being somewhat of a celebrity, especially with the celebrity-loving Americans. For once the clacking of the typewriters of Major Hal Steward's minions round the solitary stove in the main P.I. room at the Cavalry Division was stilled, as Randolph, plump, benevolent, mellow, and with something of the impishness of his illustrious father, regaled us all with an astonishing wealth of amusing reminiscence. He is a firstrate raconteur, and his stories have the hall-mark of first-hand authentic 'front line' gossip, often of a piquant flavour. Even without the four bottles of John Dewar, which we consumed within the magic circle of a dozen favoured ones, it would have been a good evening. We had got our stories away- or so we thought-and Randolph sat back in a rickety kitchen chair, tunic open, top trouser buttons loosed, and talked. We did not notice at first that, in the shadows beyond the fringe of the inner circle, a considerable audience had gathered and were listening, spellbound. At one stage the voice of a young American reporter, high-pitched and scratchy with excitement, came from a corner: "Say, is it for release? I wanna cable this stuff ! "

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We all sat up with something of a jolt. Men were taking notes as hard as they could go. It was good potent gossip, and all 'on the rekkud'. Randolph was not one whit abashed. I suppose he knew well enough the danger points. I can't remember a word of it except that it was good, amusing talk. At any rate, half a dozen American reporters had stories that night that they hadn't bargained for, and one or two of them cabled almost every word. After that Randolph creaked his way through the wintry night on a stretcher provided by the medical section, having regard to his bulk, the wound on his foot, the fact that Randolph is Randolph, and that the best currency in those parts was undoubtedly Scotch whisky. Thanks to Randolph, I had my bottle safely stowed, for I had resolved to drink it with Colonel Billy Harris, perhaps even washing down another dinner of roast duck.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE ADVANCE

SOME TIME during the night of the 12th Stephen Barber of the News Chronicle and myself discovered that we had similar views on war reporting and identical dead-lines. Alan, with his agency demands for bits and pieces, was seldom an early starter, and it was impossible for me to work with him day in and day out unless I was prepared to waste vital morning hours. I do not think that two men could have been outwardly more dissimilar than Steve and Alan. Whatever the conditions, Alan's hair, beard, and whole aspect conveyed the impression that he had just emerged from the bath and the hairdresser. Steve, on the other hand, was particularly noticeable for the fact that his fair crop of hair stood deliberately on end, and his baby face with the round, innocent, but challenging (and even rather cynical) blue eyes, bore the grime of battle. Yet there was a lack of carelessness in Steve's aspect, for only the most skilful fingers, one felt, combing the hair in many directions at once and combined with a careful rolling in the bedroll could produce a head of such remarkable untidiness, and with so many pinnacles, sprouting so fiercely at so many opposed angles. The sight of Steve's rotund little body bustling along in battledress carried with it a jocose air of efficiency. He had also a kind of 'horse laugh' which he let loose in startling fashion combined with a lisping sarcastic comment of disbelief. I had known Stephen Barber casually in London, running across him from time to time with his foreign editor, Sam Herbert, who is an old friend of us both. I had been unable to visualise Steve, with his round baby face, his bow-tie, and faintly lisping speech, as a 'front line' war correspondent. Yet 133

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there were' none braver, few more competent, and none more determined and indefatigable to get there and to stay there until the story was done. He believed in a marked degree in the testimony of his eyes, and he had a strain of shrewdness, a knowledge of war, and a tendency to sudden outbursts of irritable anger and tactlessness, quite unsuspected in so mildlooking (at first sight) a person. He had also a weak heart, but it seemed to thrive on exercise, hard work and excitement, and deterred some people from punching him on the nose. I should think that he knows more about the Korean war than any other living person. This, then, is a sketchy view of the man with whom I walked out onto the dusty road fronting the Cavalry Division to thumb a ride to battle, and with whom I was destined to have several adventures of a warlike and a peaceful nature. Steve showed his quality at once, howling the most fearful oaths after two men in a jeep who refused to stop, and bringing them almost to a nervy, uncertain halt by the sheer ferocity of his reaction. I realised that I was due for embarrassment, for nothing would induce me to accept a ride from anyone who was unwilling to provide it. On the other hand, Steve's attitude was legitimate, for hitch-hiking was our only form of travel, and, since we were authorised to cover the war in all its aspects, we had a right to be carried in whatever vehicle had the room. But at this moment two military police swung out of divisional headquarters and were forced to stop or to knock us down. It was the morning of the 13th, a day on which for more than ten years almost without fail something more outstanding than usual has happened to me. Our driver and his mate lolled back in their seats, chewing gum, and exchanging the usual commonplace obscenities of their kind. They didn't bother to look where they were going, steering the vehicle casually and slowly on an erratic course, driving the peasants into the gutters, and even tight back against the mud walls of the dwellings at the outskirts of Kaesong. This seemed to amuse them, especially the antics of the 'festering Gooks' escaping their wheels. Within five minutes, mumbling 'aw muck' out of the corners of their mouths, they managed 'This is deliberate. I dislike the sound of 'was'.

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to knock down two children more than three feet off the road. Blood poured from the mouth of a boy of four or five years, his face clotted with blood and dust as he lay unconscious, and another appeared badly hurt in the body. Steve and I leapt from the jeep and lifted the kids carefully onto the back seat. The driver and his mate had quietened at once. A score of Koreans huddled round like a single living organism, impelled by fear and horror, moving almost imperceptibly forward and back with a kind of murmuring sound, which conveyed a most terrible sense of impotence, distress and protest. "Get these kids to the hospital quick," I said. The driver sat up and drove off, and Steve and I walked on our way. It was a bad beginning, symbolic in a hateful way of the thing war has become and of the principal sufferers in the whole dreadful business. We had to walk most of the way to the front on the main axis of the 8th Cavalry Regiment. Apart from the batteries firing from their positions in the foothills of the broad valley there were no sounds of war. It was a magnificent morning. The sun poured light and warmth from a faultless sky to crown the crests of the hills with glowing bronze. The smoke of many fires rising in slow grey-blue tendrils from the burning undergrowth hung motionless in the still air. The thatched shacks by the roadside which had escaped revealed dark faces huddled in their dim interiors, while heaps of black ash over the hard-baked earth of their foundations were all that remained of others. Once more we were on the threshold of war and destruction as the new advance began. A loudspeaker mounted on a van, and accompanied by 'Stars of the South Korean Theatre', called a message of peace to echo in the hills, promising good treatment to all who would surrender. One of the 'Stars' then sang a song or played an accordion. By this means nearly fifty doubtful individuals in the inevitable long white 'underclothes' had surrendered halfheartedly to these blandishments. Whether or not they had been soldiers it was, I think, impossible to say. But it was certain that they stood a good chance of death in front of the advance, and a good chance of living behind it.

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But there were signs of excitement. The reserve company of the leading battalion told us of an attack three or four miles down the road, and we managed to jump a signals jeep. About six miles north of Kaesong the rugged hills, with their sharp outlines jagged against the sky, tower steeply above a small group of peasant homes and vegetable patches, and here the valley ends in a deep cutting which winds, almost as dark and forbidding as a tunnel, through the hills to whatever lies beyond. This was the most advanced cavalry position, and three Patton tanks were deployed to a depth of two hundred yards from the verge to a position under the hill beside the stream. Their crews, sunning themselves and airing their feet on the tops of their vehicles, surveyed a scene of enemy disaster with some satisfaction. Suddenly round the bend, less than one hundred yards ahead, with nothing to herald their coming, three North Korean T 34 tanks had loomed out of the morning mist, overrunning the outposts in their foxholes and opening fire. But the Americans had not been caught napping. The right-hand Patton had engaged the leading enemy at point-blank range and put its first shot straight up the spout of the enemy 75-mm., curling the barrel into a three-pronged festoon of steel from which, however, the enemy had fired two or three wild rounds before expiring. In equally efficient manner the two other Pattons had engaged enemy two and three and destroyed them. Whatever attack this sortie had been meant to herald had not materialised. There had not been a further sound. The stage was now set with the flaming and charred remains of this morning excitement. The second T 34 was 'brewing up' in tremendous fashion, blocking the road, and her ammunition exploding at regular intervals in great mushrooms of black smoke and flame billowing upwards of a hundred feet. The other two tanks smouldered peacefully. Cautiously Steve and I approached the tanks and were able to check one speedometer as having covered 2,000 kilometres. Not that anything, I think, of importance could be deduced from it. The charred corpses of those members of the crews who had tried to escape their burning ovens lay about in the

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terrible grotesque puppet attitudes of the burned-to-death. A mongrel dog snarled and howled savagely as we tried to kick it away from gnawing at the entrails of the dead. But the heat from the brewing tank and the danger from the explosions forced us to cut short our examination, and we joined the American tank crews on the roofs of their weapons. They were due to attack within an hour, and reckoned there would be stiff opposition in the next valley. The deep narrow cutting looked an ominous gauntlet, and they would be glad to be the other side of it with a wider view. We hung round to go in with them. A peasant's hut, miraculously intact, and within fifty feet of the leading T 34, held our interest. Two pigs squealed in a sty by the back entrance, and there was a shed with primitive yet well-fashioned farm implements of iron, hoes and mattocks with unusual curving shapes. The house itself was raised about two feet above ground level and enclosed a small square of 'patio', and the ovens, which still glowed with fire, warmed the floors of all the rooms. Breakfast had been ready when the owner and his family had considered that the time had come to evacuate their home. Seven bowls of rice, richly seasoned with herbs, and with odd scraps of meat, were neatly set out and untouched. There were a dozen or more of the huge Korean earthenware storage jars, almost large enough to house the forty thieves, and which we had seen often in the potteries and shops of Taegu, Seoul and Kaesong. Bedding and quilts lay upon the Tatami matting which covered the floors of the two principal rooms, and there were numerous chests of drawers, cheaply made, but with a certain taste and refinement. They were of black polished wood inlaid with motherof-pearl. Silken clothing hung upon the walls from wooden pegs. The heavy iron pots and pans were of peasant craftsmanship, as were also the farm implements. Stephen and I were greatly impressed by this home. It revealed a high standard of simple life which, in my own experience, covering perhaps fifty comparable places, was seldom excelled. When we emerged the men of the leading company had moved up into a small hamlet which comprised half a dozen

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dwellings, and were squatting on their haunches or lounging in their jeeps opening tins of C rations and scattering the remains carelessly about them. We had already noted the lines of advance strewn with the small packets of sugar and coffee, salt and tins of jam which form a part of tins containing sweet biscuits and plain biscuits. The wastage of these rations was terrifying and shocking to a European, and probably incredible to a Korean. I was sitting on the roof of the Patton tank nearest to the verge, chatting with the friendly crew, and regarding the split and curling barrel of the T 34 75-mm. and the still brewing vehicle, while Steve prowled about. The brewing tank would have to be shoved off the road before the American tanks could lead the advance, and this was not a pleasant prospect until she stopped brewing. Suddenly, as we idled, there was a terrific crash and we dived for cover, imagining the enemy had us with a heavy mortar at least. Shouts for help from the tank on our left showed that someone was hit, and we found three of the crew slightly wounded by fragments of rock, which had apparently chipped from the hillside, and by shrapnel. Nothing more happened. It was odd. Steve let out a whoop and pin-pointed the danger. The brewing enemy tank had 'cooked' the round up the spout of her 75-mm. and had fired point blank at her enemy three hours after she had been 'destroyed'. It taught us all a lesson, and we made a resolve to be more wary of dying tanks in future, and never to sit complacently looking up the spouts of guns, dead or alive. It was something of a shock. Soon after this a dozen correspondents arrived with a group of V.I.P.s, mainly Turkish staff officers having a look at the future fighting ground of their troops. It was all holding up the business, and Steve was showing signs of irritability. The loudspeaker van arrived, complete with singers and accordion player, and began making its play against the enemy. There was some nonsense about the van leading the advance-really in the 'van'! Meanwhile the enemy had had all the time in the world to make his dispositions in the next valley, or prepare his ambush, whereas on the heels of the morning tank attack a probable three or four thousand yards of road could have

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been secured easily with the enemy off balance. I think that the battalion commander felt this, too, but the V.l.P.s had to examine the enemy tanks at leisure and hear the whole story. Mike James of the New York Times had joined us. He is a strange young man, rather like a lighted lantern on a clothes prop, his tight-skinned skull crowning a skeleton of a body, with remarkable piercing dark eyes alight with a curious mixture of humour and fanaticism. His voice, low and gentle, is quite disarming. It is almost a caressing voice and a stranger to obscenity. I had always liked Mike James whenever and wherever I had met him. He had been a quaint, dignified figure riding an absurd motor scooter, which he had contrived somehow to fly from Japan to Kimpo (in an aircraft, of course), sedately round Kimpo airfield, and slowly but surely into Seoul. And always he was bubbling over with some new mad scheme, or beaming with delight at some new trophy he had 'come by'. The main aim of his life at this moment, and in which he sought to enlist my horrified aid, was to acquire at least one Bren gun. In danger he was a fine companion. He was full of some scheme for a caravan, 'like Montgomery', he said, in which we could go to war. It would be terrific fun. We could service it easily, for the Americans are the most amiable mechanics in the world, and will do anything for you. This is their element, and they are happy in it. Mike in fact was the very best kind of romantic Wild West American except that he revealed the rather dangerous trait of many of the best of the post-1918 generations of finding it necessary .'to prove something to himself'. This is my personal diagnosis, for there were about half a dozen like Mike in Korea, and I had suffered from the same thing twentyfi ve years before. This led Mike into unnecessary dangers while at his heel stalked the ghost which might stalk him to his grave unless he learned to lay it. It's not easy. It took me nearly twenty years, and sometimes the damn thing follows me now. .

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n Steve, Mike and I climbed aboard the second tank and hung on clear of the turret. We had managed to nudge the T 34 far enough to give us room, and the charred corpses were flattened under the tracks. At least the dogs had sheered off. The lead tank was about thirty yards ahead at the entrance to the cutting. Number one platoon strung out in two single columns one on each side of the road. Number two tank. Number two platoon. Number three tank. Three hundred yards behind us 'Baker' Company had formed up, and behind them, Charlie Company.' We moved off with a slight tightening of the nostrils. Rather foolish, riding on the lead tanks, especially number two, an easy target for anyone. Alan would shake his head in real exasperation if he heard about it. "Tommy, haven't you learned yet! At your age. Don't you know enough of war? Isn't one lead job like another?" No, I thought, I haven't quite learned yet, and I haven't quite grown up. Sometimes I think I have, and then something happens, and there's something more to be done. Yes, I do know enough about war, but not about this war. Yes, one lead job is like another- with trained troops. But these are not trained troops. If they were we would not be riding these tanks. We would be in the way. The company commander wouldn't tolerate it (it's not like entering a town -you can ride tanks to your heart's content going into towns). A platoon commander would prefer to shoot us. So would the corporals leading the sections surrounding us. You can't carry 'spare parts' into battle. Were we a part of them or weren't we? Whose orders should we obey? And what orders could there be for us? Other than to go- GO! Imagine the rapid commands; the swift easy deployment; the fire plan. Each man trained instinctively to his role, a piece in a pattern, all his senses keyed to his orders. And we with no part in it, suddenly alone. . . . Scene shifters wandering onto the stage in the midst of the performance. •These may not be the actual companies engaged that day.

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But these troops were all spectators. We were among friends, going into 'battle', a bunch of men without leadership. The leading tank was out of sight round the hairpin bend. No firing yet, but that didn't mean anything: they'd surely let the first one through. A slight climb up and round and down. The young tank commander warned us to jump quick if he had to fire. He'd give us the 'wire', otherwise the recoil would send us flying. Mike grinned. Steve brooded, his mouth showing a faintly amused smile. We cleared the bend, and the road wound over a bridge leftwards under the hills. But the lead tank was already half-way across the dry stony river bed. The thin trickle of the stream ran in a narrow channel on the far side. There had not been rain for weeks. The walls of the hills, limestone I should imagine, were almost sheer, menacing. The bridge over which the road ran might be mined. The stream bed was safer. Suddenly the lead tank opened fire, shattering a small hut at the corner where the road turned again through the hills, less towering but somehow more formidable. We decided to be on our feet keeping close by our tank. After about two minutes we began to advance again. The lead tank was back on the road again 'sniffing the scent', as it were. It was very peaceful. It was interesting, as it always is, to observe eyes and nostrils. Eyes are very bright, whites clear. Nostrils usually taut. Strange how the human animal works ... like an animal, when it must, its animal instincts functioning, back hair rising .. . 'hackles' ... adrenalin, and all the rest of it. And, curious too, all these young men with their mixed and varied bloo'ds, amalgam of a new race, denying orders, leadership, discipline, afraid of their 'rights', their absurd 'equality', going into danger in this fashion! It was unfair, yet an unfairness of their own making. Perhaps the whole future of the world depended upon how well and truly and swiftly they learned and grew up. I tried to shake these thoughts out of my head, and shuddered. There was certain to be some kind of reception committee somewhere round the corner. Slowly the lead tank rounded the bend. No sound beyond the roar of the motors. Fighter aircraft swooped in the perfect sky. We moved swiftly with the troops, stooping

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slightly, instinctively, as they half ran, as men do under a roof when they feel they may hit their heads. We were in a broad valley. The river bed on our right was flanked by low hills, rugged, with great boulders outcropping to dapple the dark green and bronze of stunted trees, and scrub with their pale, lichened grey. On the left an expanse of plain, rice paddies rich and ready for harvest, the heads of the tall dark goldenwhite stalks, heavy and drooping with grain. No sight or sound of peasant in these fields. A thin belt of scrub-almost an English hedgerow- between the road and the fields and the distant hills, until a mile or two ahead the road wound right-handed and the hills closed in again, and another entrance led to another valley. We were well into the valley now, half-way down the straight, the whole company strung out along the open road, when it came, the harsh stutter of automatic fire sputtering the dust round us. It was as though by this signal a deluge of fire was released to reverberate, crashing like the lash of giant steel whips. The din was terrific. We got off the road into the thin belt of scrub where a slight trough in the brambles gave some sort of cover from fire. The whole of 'Able' company was now in the ditch with all three tanks giving tongue, pounding their shells into the boulder-strewn hillside and shattering the very air with their machine guns. It was impossible in this remarkable inferno of sound to detect the enemy, or to assess his fire. There was the constant harsh aftermath of sound as of a heavy sea breaking on shingle, an undertone to the lashing waves of sound. As soon as they had their bearings men began to fire at random from the ditch, but without targets. At the first slight lull in this tempest of din the stutter of the enemy machine gun came again from the hills, and an odd shot or two, calling forth again an immense reply. The recoil of the tanks set up dust clouds, and it was impossible for any rifleman to shoot with effect. Within fifteen minutes the fighters had joined in, diving down upon the hillside with their rockets. And at last we discovered the enemy ambush three-quarters way up the hillside across the river bed- perhaps eight hundred yards exactly opposite us. They had chosen their place well

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in a tumble of boulders and screened with saplings. In terms of money the American reply to every short enemy burst of 50 calibre was equal to about one thousand dollars to a dime. But now for the first time the fire was on the target. The whole thing took on a quality of fantasy. What on earth were the handful of North Koreans thinking about? There they were with a machine gun, a·rifie or two, exchanging shots with three tanks and more than one hundred men, fighter bombers, and no end to it, except death. It was almost impossible not to cheer when they got a light mortar going and lobbed two shells short into the river bed, and then three on the road. The whole column was halted. A battalion. We had been in the ditch for an hour when I went back two or three hundred yards to find the command jeep and try to discover how long this ridiculous state of affairs would be tolerated. In ten minutes a section could have outflanked the enemy post on its feet. A patrol could have gone through immediately ahead of the advance and swept the whole thing out of the way, and opened the road. Tanlc patrols on the road wouldn't do any good: that had become obvious long since in this war and others. The signals jeeps were a babel of orders which were not orders. The two-way transmission allowed argument. At last after more than an hour and an immense wastage of ammunition a platoon from Baker Company began working their way through the scrub just under the ridge of the hill, and we all became silent spectators in the ringside seats. The mortar fire continued until the end. Ten minutes after the platoon had gained the hillside the half-dozen enemy, manning their weapons to the· last, were flushed from their boulders and killed. They bad done well. I have described this in some detail because it was typical of the whole advance and the whole method. Every enemy shot released a deluge of destruction. Every village and township in the path of war was blotted out. Civilians died in the rubble and ashes of their homes. Soldiers usually escaped. Time and again a handful of men held up a regiment, forcing a few of them at last-but never at first-to get on their feet

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off the road and deploy. There were no clear orders then, or ever. The N.C.O.s were often entirely ineffectual, their authority unrecognisable in their commands, or bearing, and seldom pressed to a conclusion. The officers, speaking in the same voices as their men, in the same idiom, and without the absolute authority of discipline and training, were seldom better. At night their voices were not recognisable as the voices of authority. Once or twice I heard officers imploring their men to get on their feet, to get out of the ditch and spread out, but it was of no avail. "Aw muck ! " said the men. And the officer would slouch off defeated. Of course there were men with the qualities of leadership who worked hard and gained the respect of their men, and some better results. But these were rare. It would have been murder to confront this army with a trained enemy armed with weapons comparable with their own. All this experience was new and exciting to Mike, and we didn't talk much about it. I think he had his misgivings. Steve was appalled. They would never withstand a real attack. It wasn't somehow in their nature. The chief of staff of the division had come up to watch the final phase. He was a tall, well-built man with the face of a scholar, fleshy, yet long, thoughtful, humourful, with very steady eyes- grey, I think-and a slow, humorous way of speaking. We shook hands. "I'll lift you back when you're ready," he said. The battalion commander had just gone forward to lead the whole thing and try to keep the column moving through the next valley. Battalion commanders acted as subalterns far too often. Even a general had done. so on one occasion and died for it. The column moved on. Half an hour later the battalion commander was shot badly in the stomach. The chief of staff lifted us back in his jeep, and was patient while we tried to get an abandoned enemy motor cycle and side-car to go. It wouldn't. That night I met the general commanding the division and told him all about it. He wanted to know. It was the beginning of a friendship, the salt without which the monstrous lunacy of modern war would be insupportable. In sum, the day's

The Argylls going into Hungso-ri (p. 160). Brigadier Coad and C.O. Argylls.

Brigadier General Tahsin Yazici, Commanding Turkish Brigade (p. 231).

Officers of the Turkish Brigade.

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work could have been done more swiftly without the firing of a single shell, without aircraft, without rifle fire. It would have been better to send a platoon through on their feet on the flanks first to clear the way for the column. Otherwise one machine gun would have sufficed to have kept the enemy heads down for the necessary fifteen minutes while a section got round to do the job. Apart from the fact that it was absurd for half a dozen men to hold up a regiment, the wastage of ammunition was frightening. It wasn't solely a question of 'wealth' or steel, and the general knew well what all this meant in terms of trucks on the crumbling roads, of aircraft, of ships. General Gay listened quietly to what I had to say. When I paused-as I did once or twice-he nodded his head for me to continue, his chin thrust down into his hands, eyes grey and unwavering on mine. Presently he shook hands. "Come and see me again, " he said. m

Yet it was difficult to feel depressed. Life was too stimulating, and the worst might not happen; the worst, in fact, which some of us had imagined after the crossing of the Parallel appeared to be receding. Pyongyang was not far ahead, and I was not alone in my belief that we should find very little in the way. For the time being we were all isolated from the nightmare of world news, and my thoughts restricted to this narrow axis: the road to Pyongyang. That should be the end. It we could get out of it then-before the Chinese should be scared-or the Russians. But somehow one imagined the Russians, despite the obvious faith in them and their 'imminent a~d' of every prisoner, too realist to be dragged into this costly and infinitely dangerous experiment. But the Chinese-it was impossible to be happy about the Chinese. There was Formosa, and the wider threat hanging over her. Yet Pyongyang, and even the 'waist', might not be too far north to disturb her. After all, she had only to wait, and soon the United Nations would be gone. The whole corrupt edifice upon which Synghman Rhee balanced, with MacArthur's hand K

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on his elbow, would collapse with its own rottenness. What a mockery it was to name this kind of thing democracy! What a Quixotic business- at best-to try to establish it, to imagine it possible to establish an evolutionary result without evolution. I believe most of us had our fingers crossed. China we knew was ready to defend Manchuria, and it was a question of where she should consider the defence ought to begin. The Yalu River would be leaving it late-too late. But there was indeed a sense of relief in these days. Colonel Harris, restless in his positions across the main road northward, sent a message that the ten thousand enemy, now estimated to be in Kumchon, were doomed. He was expecting the biggest 'kill' of the war. The 5th Cavalry on the right flank had sorted themselves out and were at the eastern approaches to the area. North-east of them the South Korean Corps was advancing against 'light and scattered enemy resistance'. Miraculously, too, the Middlesex had extricated themselves, and the whole brigade had startled the guerillas and the Americans by marching over the hills on their feet. They were amused at the whole business, flushing out an odd man here and there. "A sledgehammer to kill a fl.ea," said the brigade major, tall, elegant, very reserved, and doomed so soon to die. A company commander of the Middlesex taking over a position from an American company had asked the U.S. captain the 'form' about a sharp conical hill dominating his position. The American had been astonished. "Say, Captain, you can't get up there in a jeep! " Everyone was happy. The 8th were now at the outskirts of Kumchon, having skirmished their costly way through the winding valleys. The 24th Infantry Division was filling up the wide empty spaces to the westward behind Colonel Harris, and showing signs of jockeying for the lead. A real fight for the 'right of way' between the 24th and the 1st Cavalry might bring complete chaos on the crumbling roads. General Gay had one eye over his shoulder, and began to heave his division forward. Steve and I went methodically and thoughtfully about our business. We examined the very few enemy dead with care.

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A young officer had a pound of millet meal wrapped in a cloth in his haversack. None had more. Their weapons were shoddy but effective. The North Koreans and the Chinese needed one man back to support one man forward. The Americans had nine men back for one forward. A bag of millet meal against scores of tins, of candy, Coca-Cola, and toilet supplies. We balanced these things-or tried to- in terms of available man-power and wealth; in terms of the real war. It was already common knowledge that MacArthur wanted to establish himself as the Napoleon of the East before he died. It seemed to us that the old man, isolated and surrounded by fawning sycophants in his ivory tower, had become a blind, ridiculous, but immensely powerful Samson capable of pulling down the world . . . the very world. Jn common with the G.I., he did not know, or he had forgotten, that he was a servant, and that in serving lies dignity, nobility and a greatness and freedom beyond the grasp of dictators, and of those who serve only themselves. We tried to keep the nightmare of war at bay, for the implications growing out of each day's experience were terrible enough. For a week I gave myself over to the advance, seeking exhilaration, description, the tang of adventure, and the salt of life. Four of us coerced Hal Steward's driver over a fiftymile-wide sweep round the right flank into the barren empty ruin of Kumchon. There was the real feel of 'Indian country' on this wild ride, and not a sign of friend or foe. Twelve thousand enemy were reported in these hills. We saw none of them; only the glowing red of the myrtle blazoning the hillsides, which towered their great craggy ridges, like the wild seas, to every sky line; and the deep valleys, the smoke rising lazily from the smouldering remains of burned-out villages, the rich crops unharvested, and the peasants creeping back, blinking, wondering if the storm was spent, seeking in the rubbish, beginning at once to rebuild. Had not all life been like this for them? All their history best forgot? As, it was said in Kaesong, that they tried to forget, regarding it with shame while aiming at a philosophy of sublime simplicity, seeking to exist on a bare minimum

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and embrace the doctrine of Thoreau, the wealth of no wealth. The 5th Cavalry had put up the usual notices at the approaches of Kumchon to welcome the 8th Cavalry still struggling a mile or two back: 'You are entering Kumchon by courtesy of the 5th Cavalry.' 'Have no fear the 5th Cavalry are here.' And so on. It was always like that, especially with the engineers and their slowly built awkward bridges: 'You are crossing the river by courtesy of - - Coy Engineers.' Sometimes a chap handed out a business card, soliciting custom for 'after the war'. But I had absorbed the first shock of this kind of thing in the Second World War. Kurnchon was dead. There had been nothing in the bottle; nothing fizzing against the cork. Perhaps it had been empty from the start. An old moth-eaten mare and a yellow pony, nosing about in the ruins, were all that lived visibly in Kumchon on the first day, and there was little scope for living invisibly, for the place was flattened almost in its entirety. We explored away from the main road where a house or two still stood, saved by their comparative isolation. In one of them we found a kind of hospital, or it may have been an execution department, for there was the evidence of some terrible story. A dead body lay across the front doorway. Inside were others. There was a dentist's chair and the littered paraphernalia of dentistry, and in another room various firstaid medical equipment. On the floor of an inner sanctum the body of an officer of security police, with the green stripe down his trousers, lay curiously bound and swathed. His white-gloved hands were wired together in front of his body. His head was swathed completely in white bandages. His uniform was smart and clean. Carefully we unwrapped the white bandages, always a rather gruesome task unless you are accustomed to it, for one never knows what one will find. But the head was perfect, seeming, at first sight, unblemished. The face was waxen, almost alive, under glossy black hair. There was not a trace of fear or suffering upon it, though this might not mean much with an Asiatic face. He had been shot carefully behind the ear, and then cleaned up, 'dolled up', in this strange way. Curious to execute him with white gloves on and

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his hands in front of him. But the murder was interesting to us because this man had been a communist leader, and his death a very deliberate piece of business. Groups of G.l.s were busily blowing safes in the ruins of the post office and the communist headquarters, destroying whatever of interest there might be in the way of documents. Hundreds of picture magazines, many of them of Russian origin, littered the streets, Stalin kissing little girls while receiving bouquets, Kim II Sung patting children's heads, and so on, looked up from the rubble of the roads. Kumchon had ceased to exist. But there was good news for us: the 27th Brigade had leapt out of the ruck and were 'swanning' on. At one point they had sent their anti-tank guns racing forward to block a converging road against the cavalry until they could get through. They had the priority to do so from the general, and if this 'scrap of paper' was valueless they intended to get through by any means in their power. Meanwhile the 24th Infantry Division were jostling hard on the rails. The crust had broken: the field was wide open. Steve, Mike and I, still together, joined up with the Garry Owens at a road junction several miles ahead at a place called Hanpo-ri. Namchonjon lay ten miles down the main road, the next hurdle, and Billy Harris was preparing a night attack rather than risk losing the lead. He was disappointed at missing his 'kill'. It would have been the first since the Naktong river, and it was beginning to be rather disconcerting that the enemy had disappeared so completely, and only these handfuls of rearguards in the hills sought to impede the advance. A report that five thousand enemy were on our flank now scarcely awakened interest and was disregarded. "Divide by ten and ten again," said the colonel dryly, almost bitterly. But there was the welcome of these enthusiastic people to cheer us all. We ate roast chicken and drank Randolph's bottle of Scotch, and prepared to attack Namchonjon. A strong patrol with tanks went out at dusk, meeting nothing worse than a solitary sniper in a village half-way. But on the outskirts an outbreak of automatic fire and mortars urged

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them to pull back the best part of two miles, where they bogged down, and refused to budge out of the ditch. One or two officers made half-hearted suggestions about deploying, but it wasn't any good. It was a night I remember for its unreal beauty. We were in a great bowl in the midst of a sea of gentle hills. All day the rockets and napalm had rained down, and all night the fires outlined the ridges and the steep cones with filigrees of gold, like lace, and girdled the slopes with fiery belts. Only the long looping curves of red tracer, ricochetting lazily from the rocks, disturbed the wonder of the night. The stars were brilliant, seeming almost within reach in the dark purity of a sky which had lost its immensity in this exquisite framework. I fear that so deeply was I impressed that I cabled some of this in the midst of my story-or thought I did. But in fact, as we were soon to learn, every word had been sabotaged at Eighth Army. Not deliberately, maybe, but through the sheer indifference, inertia and incompetence of the P.I.O.' By noon on the 15th the Garry Owens were in the ruin of Namchonjon. Despite all the efforts of Colonel Huff, his arm still slung, and even the willingness of his men, it was the usual slow business. They knew no other way. The odd bursts of fire. The halt. The air strike. The artillery. Tanks forward. Bravely keen to get on, but sticking to the road, the leading company suffered several casualties, and a young officer wounded in the foot wept tears of rage. He had tried to get some of them off the road. There were twelve air strikes in all that morning, the hills blazing, torrents of black smoke spewing up to the sky from the napalm; torrents of white smoke from the phosphorus bombs; spouts of earth and rice and produce, shacks and a few people, from both. A village on the last bend of the road blazed so fiercely that it was not easy to pass through without being scorched, and in Namchonjon there were still those with the courage to fire. Bullets whined now and then in the tangle of telegraph wires littering the main street, and a light mortar began to lob a bomb every three or four minutes into the 'Alan Whicker wrote a furious piece about this in World's Press News.

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station yard where Colonel Huff was setting up his battalion headquarters. Namchonjon was an appalling ruin, a scene of almost absolute desolation. There was nothing left of it. It had been a considerable town of at least ten thousand souls, perhaps more, in Korea. None now.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE

27TH

TAKES THE LEAD

CAUTIOUSLY patrols probing out of Namchonjon gathered speed. There was nothing in the way. The country was open, and the signs were unmistakable. Peasants laboured at the rice harvest. On the hillsides we could see throngs of people watching our progress. Children began to run towards us from the shacks waving South Korean flags and crying ' Manzai-manzai', greeting the grim tank crews. The race was on. Cavalcades of tanks and trucks and jeeps roared over the roads and through these strange villages unmarked by war. Corps and divisional headquarters uprooted their tents, and the three main prongs of the advance rushed wildly to gain the spearhead lead on the main axis. It was an astonishing morning. Through undamaged villages lined with cheering crowds of men, women and children, the columns of this great army roared on while the eyes of the onlookers widened in amazement at the staggering array, the huge tracked vehicles, the trucks loaded with troops, and last the guns. Every house wore some sort of emblem of South Korea, every child waved a flag. They must have worked furiously all through the night, or probably they had stocks of alternative national emblems for all occasions. But they had cause for rejoicing. Their villages had been spared, and it was curious to think of the strange chance which spared this and destroyed that, thinking back with all the blackened misery of South Korea in my mind. Here the crops were harvested, the rice, stooked in tall broad sheaves, like miniature wigwams, glowed golden in •the fields like the tents of an army filling the spacious valleys. Each one of these stooks, we thought, might house an enemy and a machine 152

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gun. And sometimes they did. But not on this bright morning. Indeed there were many purposes to which this rice mig~t be put apart from eating it. But the peasants lining the hillsides in full view and watching our progress, waiting to be sure of our intentions before coming down into their fields and homes, were the sure sign that the enemy had abandoned all this region. There was no sight or sound of menace, and it was clear, too, that the Russian propaganda, some of which we had seen, had proved useless in convincing these people that the Americans were a hell-mob, bent upon pillage, arson, rape, and conquering horrors to make even the followers of Ghengis Khan shudder, or clap in admiration. Instead there was this easy-going crowd with chewinggum and candy. It was a fine fertile stretch of country, of broad valleys and good roads winding round the hills, affording ever new vistas at every bend, of hill, valley, village and stooked grain. And not a sign of war. We had been carried on more than twenty-five miles by the tide before we realised that this could not be the main axis, and that the sooner we could get back the better. The course was too far to the westward, but presently swung north and we caught up with the head of the column, feeling the need to wind up its tail before springing any further. Two M.P.s returning to the division carried us willingly; but it was a slow business. The tanks and heavy trucks were having difficulty negotiating the sharp corners in the narrow streets of the villages, and we had plenty of time to observe the people. Already the children were learning about chewing gum and candy, smelling the strange-looking packages, and having to be shown what the stuff was for, and how to eat it. It was wonderful, and comical, to watch the changing expressions on the faces of these children, the strained taut looks on the faces of their mothers, softening, breaking into smiles and laughter. One G.I. handed a child a cake of soap and made signs to him to eat it, and it was impossible not to laugh at the child's face. But immediately Steve showed the child that it was to wash with, which he did not properly comprehend.

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We were able to look deep into these homes by the roadside, for we were halted for ten or more minutes in each of a dozen villages within a yard of the openings to the hovels- for they were little more than that. They revealed the utmost poverty of peasant life, the aged and the young crowding the earthen floors like animals, mothers with babes sucking at their heavy breasts squatting on the earth step, crippled children crawling and scrambling about after garbage, like dogs, others with untended festering sores, dirty eyes and noses. Yet in the main they seemed a healthy and well-fed people, as indeed they should have been in this fertile region. I think we felt the lack of the language more than ever before. There were interesting things happening. For nearly half an hour, as we were blocked midway through the largest village, waiting for a column of tan.ks and trucks to edge round a hairpin bend without smashing the corner hovels to pieces, we watched some reunions upon which we could only speculate. Betterclass young men with their hair worn as long as our own, and with urgent lively faces, were running about shaking hands with each other in warm greeting. A middle-aged man wearing pince-nez, and having the look of a schoolmaster, and an almost Western caste of features, was welcomed with obvious joy. There was a village hall of sorts where these people were congregating. Perhaps they were the 'underground' of a genuine anti-communist movement. It was unlikely that they could be the reverse. And they were quite clearly meeting each other and the older man as comrades do, while taking not the slightest notice of the streams of vehicles and troops which moved slowly and impressively through the village and the countryside. We began to fret at the long delays, but at last the columns began to exhaust themselves, and space out, and we raced back to the main road fork just north of Namchonjon. We had taken the wrong turning, but were glad of it, for nothing was lost and something gained. The crowds no longer lined the hillsides as we passed. Men were dancing on the road with what seemed unmistakable delight. Flags fluttered everywhere like flowers.

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The strain had also left the faces of the troops as they rode through this unaccustomed scene, and they were responding happily, feeling that perhaps the end was near. It was mid-afternoon when we hiked our way up the main axis. Corps was on the move. Two divisions fighting . for the right of way, and the generals in a rage. Sinmak had fallen without a shot and its valuable airstrip was in American hands. Columns of prisoners were marching back to hastily prepared cages under guards. We were clearly catching up with a new situation full of promise. No one knew where divisional headquarters was or would be, or where anyone was. But it was rumoured that the British had somehow got into the lead and were pressing on towards the great barrier of rugged hills twenty miles to the north. The 24th Division as well as the Cavalry were on their heels. The roads were chaos. That night the rain came and fell in a steady torrent. By morning the roads were churned to seas of mud, and the dry fordings of the streams and rivers were no more. There was no going back now, but only forward. II

Before nightfall the wild rush northward had bogged down on the crumbling roads. It was senseless to drive in this mad way, smashing the roads, raising immense dust clouds, nose to tail. There was a road code, a colonel told me, but no one would keep to it, or even consider it. We found the 9th Corps in a field near Sinmak without communications, without its staff, and without hope. We pressed on. Aircraft were already landing supplies on Sinmak airstrip and we picked up a case of C rations from a helpful sergeant. "Help yourself," he invited, and waved a hand in an expansive gesture. Storm clouds were looming ominously in the evening sky, so that everything was golden in the dying sun. It would be an end to the dust, anyway. We should get some air into our lungs again. Ten miles on we found Hal Steward in a tent in a barrack-square half-way through the small township of Hwanju.

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"You've chosen a good night for a tent," we said. "What's wrong with the barracks?" It was a good-looking building, windowless, of course, but the roof seemed to be on. "Nothing," said Hal. "General's orders. No more buildings. We take too damn long getting out of them, he said." The rain began to fall. It seemed that General Gay had had a bad day. The 24th Division were trying to buck him off the road, and he didn't like it. Even generals, it seemed, didn't care much for priorities. General Gay, fretting at the slow chaotic columns, had given his regimental commanders hell, and there was a depressing rumour that Billy Harris had been relieved of his command. Billy, they said, had been 'playing trains' again, and called to the general to come and have a look in some rail cutting. But the general had been hopping mad on the top of the embankment. "You come up here, Billy, and get this column moving!" he had roared. It had developed into one of those times when everything hangs on a word, a reaction and the unpredictable prides of men. These two men liked and respected each other. All Colonel Harris had to do was leave it at that and get on with the job. But the general had muttered angrily something about: "Better get back to your guns" (Billy Harris was a gunner). Again all Billy had to do was nothing, disregard the thing. Perhaps he hadn't heard it straight, anyway. There was nothing to it. He said: "Is that an order, sir?" "If you like," said the general, or something like that. And Billy Harris, proud, liked. "That goddam 24th Division! " said Hal. We got a stove going in the tent, and I went out and dragged myself a tatami mat from a house about 400 yards away. It would keep me off the floor. Billy Harris was crossing the barrack square from the general's tent on stiff legs. He lifted his crooked stick to me in recognition, set-faced. Back in the tent, the Americans had the horrors about my tatami. I would die of fleas, they said. Didn't I know they were full of fleas. Didn't I know you couldn't sleep on native things? I don't know where they thought I had been sleeping half my life, if not on 'native things'. So they soused me and

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the tatami in D.D.T.• but it was worth it, for the tatami kept me off the ground, and the worst of the night wind, and the damp, fleas or no fleas. There weren't any fleas. It was dark and raining when the general's aide poked his head through the tent flap and asked me to come to the general. Colonel Holmes was there, grave, yet with humour in his eye and a suspicion of a wink. "You'd like to know that the British are in the lead. I promised them the spearhead role. They've got it. They deserve it. We expect a big fight at Sariwon. I know you'd like to be there. " The general was very quiet, and he had had a wretched day without a doubt. "The roads are our main enemy now," he said. "And the rain. There's no more going back. I've ordered one-way traffic except for full colonels and above. We've got to keep these columns moving. " The break-through had been totally unexpected, and this soft core might be another ten miles wide; after that the hard crust to the capital. I thanked the general and went back to the tent to collect some banter. Alan Whicker struggled in like a drowned rat and dragged me out into the rain groping about for his jeep. "Tommy, I've got a jeep! She's not much, but she goes." He wanted patting on the back for this 'masterstroke', so I patted. We got Alan's stuff out, splashing in the mud, blind in the black-out, and we stuffed sacking over the engine under the bonnet. "I've been on the road all day from Seoul," said Alan. He was dead weary, and nervy, hoping he hadn't missed anything special. Correspondents trickled into the tent all through the night, literally 'trickled' or 'dripped'. The tent was cloudy with steam. Hal Steward had a petrol stove going full blast, and we cooked up coffee. It was impossible to sleep, and would be. The pattern of life was suffering another change. An agency man made the night hideous trying to get through to the Eighth Army on the field telephone. All night: "This is Sabre forward, gimme Jackson forward. That Jackson forward, gimme Jackson rear or gimme Scotch. Goddam, gimme Scotch, willya ! '" 'Code names for division, corps and army.

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This kind of thing became the natural accompaniment of the nights as the 'wire' boys got on the job, sending their messages, often unrecognisable as linked with the day's events. One of them carried a portable wireless and had it playing while he telephoned. He was almost a one-man-band. Sometimes he had his typewriter on his knees, typing one-handed. With the other hand he tuned his radio while keeping the telephone instrument gripped under his chin like a violinist. We called him 'Field Marshal Bennyhoff' and a great deal more besides. One got used to anything. Louis Heren came in, dark-bearded, massive in heavy overcoats, unruffled and very wet. Jimmy Hays of Kemsley, grumbling, good-natured, cherubic as Cupid, ruddy face and twinkling eyes. Alex Valentine, dark, tall, almost sinister, and very taut after a terrible drive. It was good to see them. "Give us a fill-in, will you, Tommy?" said Louis and Jimmy, and Alan joined us. We all squatted on my tatami mat in the damp gloom and I told them all I knew up to date. The 27th Brigade tomorrow, and maybe Sariwon, maybe some war reporting. They were happy. It had been a terrible ride up from Seoul. Easy going almost up to Kaesong, but after that sheer hell. The traffic was nose to tail, unbroken. Alex had driven the jeep, his back wheels skidding and thumping over the broken shoulders of the road, hour after hour, dodging in and out, avoiding death on the roads by inches. A timid or nervous driver would never get through. Most of the stuff would be bogged down all night, not moving more than a mile or two. We were away soon after dawn. It took us half an hour to get Alan's jeep going on two cylinders. The engine had almost 'had it', but if it would keep going for two or three days it would be worth the trouble. Steve and I worked on it. Alan was no mechanic, but he had found the thing and got it here. We chugged off. The sky had cleared. Steam rose with the sun and the road shoulders became treacherous skids, so that we crawled crabwise passing the column out of town; fearful of stalling and blocking the narrow passing space. The road swung right, and we cheered the brigade sign: 'Newcastle'. There was not much on the road ahead, and it was glorious country after the miles of craggy hills with ragged ridges

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frowning down upon the narrow valleys. This was a tract of hilly but rolling country, with wide expanses of plain and valley, neatly and well farmed, and now harvested. Rice stooks filled every broad valley to the blue foothills. Villages like mushrooms lay in the crooks of the hills, the roof thatching embracing the adobe dwellings almost to the ground on all sides, like blankets of thatch, warm against the bitter northern winter. This gentle tract of country was perhaps twenty-five miles wide between two ranges. We were glad that morning. Steve, a bit fretful about the jeep, but not too fretful, not quite getting Alan on the raw. "Well, if you don't like the bloody thing .. . " And Steve shrugged. We liked it. Anyway, I liked it. It was the first transport we had known, the first morning we had got up and away without a by-your-leave. It was worth a bit of trouble. We crawled up the hills in low at eight miles an hour, and down the other sides at thirty to thirty-five. "Going like the wind! " said Alan gaily, and reminded us that we still had all the four-wheel-drive gears to help us through. We got there, and that was the main thing. The brigade headquarters was by the roadside, showing no sign of the rush of the last days. Operation maps perfectly marked, everything just so. The brigade was going in, catching up with the tail of the enemy, the rearguards covering Sariwon, the second largest town of North Korea, and falling back on the prepared defences of the capital. The Argylls were leading. Five miles ahead lay the small township of Hungso-ri. We chugged steadfastly on. This was the hour we had waited for; the British going in, the spearhead, for the first time. We warned ourselves to curb our hopes and fears. National Service troops, untried. Plenty of excuses. To hell with excuses! We were up with the Argylls. The road ran through rice fields without cover, and a bridge led over a deep gully with the road winding on round a bend of a hill, down to Hungso-ri. But first a tragedy of war. There was the crack of carbines, a burst or two of automatic fire, somewhere away to the right, and a peasant woman crumpled into the ditch by the roadside with her two babes crawling upon her. I photographed her as she lay there, peaceful, seeming only to sleep. But dead. One

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babe sat on her belly, small hands reaching up to her face, stroking, pulling at her lips, growing frantic, inconsolable, its screams agonising, as it knew, as it tried to suckle the warm still heavy breasts, to wake the dead. The other child sat in a kind of torpor of dejection at his dead mother's feet. Someone tried to divert the young child with an apple. Nothing could stem this infant grief. It smote us all down, reminding us of the unforgettable meaning of war. A medical truck had been ordered up, and a corporal took the children in his arms to the beginning of their orphan lives, and the woman was alone in the ditch. Meanwhile the leading company of the Argylls was going in, commands crisp and clear. Three tanks down the centre, sections deploying copy-book style, moving fast at the double, Bren teams swift and sure, covering the flanks with their weapons. There was a small, steep, scrub-covered hill on the left, an orchard on the right. But down the centre the first Argyll died, killed by a seeming civilian, sworn to do just this. Another, trembling, held his grenades and dared not let them go. He had been posted here, forced, he said. And ordered to hurl his grenades. It was probably true. Two hundred yards into the town the crackle of automatic fire, and a mortar. The tanks answered. The Brens held their fire. Platoons were going through deep on the flanks, combing houses, sheds, yards, flushing out the snipers. The lead tank hit a factory chimney. An hour later Hungso-ri was cleared and won. Our throats were dry, and our hearts high with pleasure and relief. It had been a copy-book job. No air strike. No artillery. Controlled fire. Twelve shells from the tanks in all. Louis Heren, Jimmy Hays and Alex plugged hell for leather for the Eighth Army on the long road back to Seoul. If they could make it by four in the morning-sixteen hours- they thought they would be in time. But for us tonight there would be Sariwon. We chugged back over the lovely road. A gang of peasants had buried the dead woman under a small heap of stones and stood eyeing us without anger or any discernible emotion. It was a lonely stretch to Hwanju, and the old jeep seemed slower even than

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she was. Soon after noon we had done our pieces, and Hal Steward swore they would go out fine. There wasn't any trouble at all, he said. If only we would worry about our work, and leave him to do the rest. And so forth. "Quit fussing! " he grumbled angrily. For us this was the best story of the war, and we were worrying a good deal about communications. It all seemed too smooth. I sneaked out onto the road with one of my 'blacks', and caught a colonel on his way back to corps. Without demur he took it for me. "Don't worry. I can't promise anything, but I'll try." That was a bit of insurance, anyway. It was nearly five o'clock when we set out again to find the 27th Brigade in the spluttering old jeep. There would be no night and no day now. We would go and come whatever the hour. No use trying to make a routine or work to a 'dead-line'. We would be where we thought we should be, rush back on communications and file, and forward again. We got a fill-up with oil and petrol, and the sergeant mechanic almost shed tears of laughter over our jeep. But he stuck pieces of matchstick between the plug heads and the leads. It would give us a stronger spark, he said. And it did. We chugged off at every bit of 15 m.p.h. on the fiat in second gear. She wouldn't take top. "Look, old man," said Alan. "Look at the reserve we've got now with all our four-wheel-drive gears. We're in real second. It's magnificent! " "Stupendous," I said. Steve merely produced his horse laugh.

m There was for perhaps half an hour a sense of rest and peace in our journey, of freedom to lull our taut and strained nerves and senses, and repair. The heavy rain had laid the dust and clear-washed the air we breathed, and all the countryside seemed pellucid, serene, exquisitely vivid, even tender and idyllic, like a fairy tale. The blue of the foothills lightened to a brilliant fawn on the upper slopes, and lit with the deep red of maple. In the deep cradles of the valleys the triangular corn stooks glowed a delicate gold, and the snug thatch of L

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the peasant homes seemed to hold a curious and peaceful invitation. There was a kind of purity, of exquisite silence, of unutterable peace, over all this rain-washed world through which we drove in Alan's tumbledown jeep, almost gaily. We were grateful for the relief to our eyes, nostrils, and to our lungs. It was almost possible, in the abandon of these thirty minutes, to forget the war, to be relieved for this brief space of the burden of death and destruction, which oppressed us whenever we had too much time to think, and of the weight of the far more terrible sufferings of the living, which were insufferable. But the strangeness of the emptiness, of the quietness, grew upon us like the roar of the sea. It was as though we rode through a world suddenly abandoned in the midst of life, the tools left as they had fallen, the spoon beside the bowl of rice. It was the still warm body of a dead countryside. And the reality, which we knew so well, and which we had escaped for our precious half-hour, crept back upon us, and had to be faced, so that the halts and stutters of the old engine began to irk rather than amuse. It was enemy country. Guerillas, doubtless, lurked everywhere. It would be improper to consider any man a friend, if we should meet one. Thus, as it had done for all three of us many times before in a great variety of circumstances, yet always basically the same, our silence became the silence of senses sharpened to the highest pitch of awareness. We forced ourselves to be silent as the slow, weary chug of the jeep dragged us so painfully over these broad and lovely hills where death might lurk at every turn in the harsh stutter we knew so well. The vacuum in the wake of war, that inevitable gap between rapidly advancing troops and those who follow on, might all at once fill with the final din of death. There was no fairy tale now in the glowing rice stooks, which reached far away to fill the valleys like the bivouacs of an army-like the sown dragon's teeth which might leap in an instant to warrior life. Save that we three in our dilapidated jeep were such small bait and unarmed. Not worth killing. It is odd to drive unarmed through such a country, but we stuck to it that it was the right thing to do. One is either

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a soldier or not a soldier, whether or not the enemy might respect the difference. But nothing untoward happened. It is like fishing: one watches the float, senses alert to strike. It is still fishing even without a fish. Suddenly and unexpectedly we came upon a line of American transport in the long street of a considerable village. There was something disconcerting in the aspect of these troops which was neither of war nor peace. We estimated that we had at least ten miles to go, and there would have been nothing particularly odd about a halted column, held up by traffic ahead, or enemy ahead. Indeed we were glad enough to come up with troops, for we realised on journeys of this kind how large is Korea and how thin on the ground the Americans are. But this column was not idly halted. While perhaps half the troops sat in their trucks, chewing and smoking, others ran swiftly here and there in the attitudes of war, though with a discernible lack of tension. A few houses burned. Half-way through the village we paused, wondering what went on. As we did so, three soldiers began to bombard the windows of a little red worker's bungalow-for the village was not entirely peasant. At once, an old woman, pitiful in apron, grey-haired, worn, wrinkled face distorted into a grimace intended to convey 'welcome', to placate, emerged in a kind of tragic caper from the front door. A half-brick urged her to leap with a terrible agility, horribly reminiscent of a hen, but holding her grimace, inviting with her gnarled hands in a kind of beckoning motion. . .. "If it is only stones ... " Carelessly the G.I.s smashed the windows, while Alan and I yelled to them to stop. Meanwhile Steve had caught a G.I. in the act of taking a wrist-watch from a young Korean, and his indignation and contempt burst from him in a scathing torrent which held the G.I. spellbound, watch in hand, as though he had been stung. "Don't you see that a watch is almost priceless to him! " roared Steve. " It's nothing to you. Good God, man, you've got watches and cameras, everything. Besides, can't you see, man, he's a friend! A friend! " And Steve held the boy's arm where an arm band proclaimed him an admitted ally, properly police-checked. The young

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Korean stood, grave-faced, and accepted the watch from the shame-faced G.I. with a courteous inclination of his head and a mumbled word. Further up the street men were firing houses for the fun of it. We found a young captain who simply shrugged hopelessly and couldn't stop them. He hadn't seen much harm in it, anyway. Alan and I went back, fearful of the old jeep, and began to reason with the stone-throwers. We told them of Russian propaganda. We appealed to the pure materialism that they would have to pay; that their country would, as likely as not, pour out dollars of life to follow the dollars of death. The remarkable thing was that the boys weren't angry. They weren't nasty. They weren't 'dead-end kids'. They were simply bored, thoughtless, undisciplined children, stuck by the roadside in a 'Gook' village. And this most dangerous and 'obscene' word, 'Gook', was a shroud with which they covered human beings and pretended that they were not human beings. Already these young men had seen so much destruction that it had blunted their senses, and it even seemed a curious foible of the 'Mad Limey's' that they should protest. But they stopped. We went on. It was growing late and dusk. The cold of the night was upon us within half an hour, and it was dark. We drove through a small town blazing so furiously that it was an uncomfortable and dangerous gauntlet of fire, and we prayed the old jeep would keep going. There were troqps now, running, faces lurid in the light of the flames. Sariwon was burning, and there was the confused harsh hubbub of w~r. The Argylls were in, the Middlesex going through, and the Australians already out ahead, fighting mad, and all blooded with victory. The night was wild with the menacing whine of bullets, flame and movement. Prisoners huddled in terror in huge bomb craters while their guards watched from the rims of these deep shadowed pits, made macabre by the ruddy glare of the burning town. We slept finally in a field with brigade headquarters. I lost Alan and Steve, and an American corporal, attached to brigade, invited me to share his tiny two-man tent on the

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ground and a good pallet of straw. We smoked cigarettes and talked quietly of the end of the war in hushed voices until we slept. In the dawn the triumph of Sariwon was before our eyes. The brigade, covering thirty-one miles in twenty-four hours, had enveloped the town, swept aside the last barrier south o.f the Taedong River covering the capital, killed two hundred enemy, and scooped nearly 1,500 into the bag. And these were real prisoners, uniformed and armed. North Korean medical units, with nurses wearing armlets, tended their wounded at the roadsides. It was the first action which might be called a battle since Seoul, and for the Eighth Anny since the Naktong River. It was the first time any considerable body of enemy had been caught and trapped. There were many tales for us to tell, but the strangest experience of all had befallen the Bren-carrier platoon of the Middlesex. Bringing up the rear of the battalion through the main street of the burning town, the platoon commander had been alarmed to see a large body of enemy marching in column of threes down a side road converging upon him. They saw each other simultaneously, and at once with shouts of joy the enemy rushed upon the Middlesex to embrace them, howling 'Russki-Russki' and dancing with joy. With great presence of mind the platoon commander had answered 'Russki', and his men had followed suit. But they could not go far with this meagre knowledge. Nevertheless, for a few minutes at least, this strange pantomime had continued in the main street, the Koreans embracing their 'deliverers' and exchanging cigarettes. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the charade was over. A shot rang out, and in an instant there was war. The Middlesex inflicted heavy casualties and put the enemy to flight. Telling us of their adventure, the men thought the mistake had been caused by their woolly cap comforters, which gave them somewhat of a Russian look, and to the Bren-carriers, not previously seen by the enemy. It was the morning of 18th October, and this phase of the war was moving rapidly to a climax. Anxiously we urged the old jeep back over the deserted road to discover the division

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still in the barrack square at Hwanju. Before our stories were done it had begun to rain again, and we had no idea how much ground we should have to cover before nightfall. IV

The thirty-six hours from noon on 18th October to midnight of the 19th is one of those many impossible periods of time upon which more is written than can be written. It rained, it seemed, incessantly, but there must have been several breaks of sunshine. I remember them well, yet without remembering no rain. The water poured in sheets out of a leaden sky about an inch overhead as though to make up for all the long drought of autumn and late summer. Had this rain set in like this from its first beginning a day or two earlier Pyongyang might not have fallen for a week or a month. As it was, it seemed a miracle that the guns, the heavy trucks and all the massed variety of transport was heaved over hastily thrown-together mattresses of timber which sank into the deep mud of the gullies almost as soon as they were laid. Every thin stream trickling in a ditch became a torrent. Even the amtracks brought up to tow the wheeled vehicles were barely able to achieve some of the crossings, dragging their own weight. 'Trains' of vehicles, roughly coupled together with wires and ropes, were hauled across the mud at the worst points by the winches of the heavy recovery vehicles. Coupling wires, too clumsily and hastily fixed, broke loose and marooned portions of the 'trains' indefinitely. And in the midst of all this generals raged like tigers. At some stage of the first twenty-four hours Steve abandoned us and our slow chugging jeep. It was a miracle that we kept going; that we crossed any of these crossings, and Steve hadn't the temperament for it. We were soon without the reserve gears of which Alan had boasted so proudly, and glad enough to keep moving at any speed at all in the second gear of our four-wheel-drive. One of our difficulties was that we could not adapt our pace to the speed of any moving column we had the misfortune to join; we had but one speed, and it varied without our aid. We did not like starting and stopping. Also

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we had become 'famous'. and presently, we didn't doubt, we should become 'infamous' and cursed off the road. But Alan and I had become attached to his vehicle. It had served us well, it seemed for a lifetime, and in a way it might be said to have saved our lives by not packing up in the heart of the flames or the desolate hills. Now and then anxious colleagues begged lifts, only to find that three persons of average stature had become 'top weight', and, like the camel or the llama, our jeep would refuse to budge at the last straw. Four brought us to a standstill. Yet in the midst of driving a total of 150 miles in this thirtysix hours, and negotiating at least ten gully crossings, towed and untowed, muddied to the thighs, saturated to the skin, from almost the first hour to the last, we also had time for many other activities. Once with the courage of despair, on our way back from somewhere, we contrived to have ourselves hitched behind a general, and we shall not soon forget his face as he looked back to see what kind of appendage he had in tow, consigning us with a terrible oath to hell and the ditch. But friendship bloomed again when we met on the road a few hours later, and he waved gaily. Sometime on the afternoon of the 18th we came up again with the 27th Brigade on the high swell of open country, which looks upon the last grim and jagged barrier of the hills, a bare fifteen or twenty miles before Pyongyang. The village of Chungwa stands at the narrow pass, and this was thought to be the hard crust of the last bastion. Regiments of artillery dragging up 155-mm. and 105-mm. guns were pounding the hills and the pass with sustained and devastating violence. Troops and guns were spread out over the wide-open swell of the high plain, and it was like an eighteenth- or nineteenthcentury set-piece battlescape; one of those infinitely fascinating engravings-'Panorama showing the Russian positions before Plevna' or 'British guns before Sebastopol'. My father had a book full of these things which had fascinated me as a child. I wish I had it now. I am sure I should be able to find in it an almost precise double of the 'American and British positions before Chungwa'. Oddly enough, it wasn't raining. There must have been a

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brief lull. A few billowing white clouds gave form to the sky, which had been either untroubled blue or untroubled lead. Aircraft soared overhead and dived with their rockets and napalm over the high ridges. Hosts of enemy were reported in prepared positions. The prepared positions were there, but not the enemy. By the late afternoon of the 18th war correspondents had begun to appear in small droves, all the old faces up for the 'kill'. Everyone was trying to back the winner into Pyongyang. The three cavalry regiments were jockeying for position, and somewhere, sometime in these days Billy Harris had waved to me with his old gusto. His dismissal had aroused widespread regret, especially with the British, and there were rumours that he was once more reinstated in command of the Garry Owens. In which case we hoped he would win. In fact the winner turned out to be a 'dark horse', a rank outsider well suited to the heavy going, and making fast time away on the right flank on its feet. This was the South Korean division under the young General Paik, and nobody had an eye on him. At any rate, it was not to be the privilege of the British. The cavalry had raced the 24th and were determined to win. It must have been about four or five o'clock in the afternoon when the 27th Brigade had their orders to make a wide sweep westward over secondary roads and to open up the Chungwa pass from the left flank. The roads were poorly marked on the maps, and the scale untrustworthy. It looked to be a twentymile loop and turned out to be every bit of forty miles over a road just about able to take one line of transport once. The Middlesex jumped off on a preliminary reconnaissance, and we followed them until after dark before turning for 'home', wherever that turned out to be. There would be a terrible day tomorrow, and there might even be a terrible night tonight. But it looked all clear until morning. The rain was teeming down again and it was still even money that the whole attack might bog down completely. The road back to Hwanju was the worst military shambles I have even seen and tempers very frayed. Men huddled in their trucks too wet to smoke. The corps commander and three or four lesser generals had raised merry hell, and we prayed that the old jeep would not

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elect to expire in such a position as to bring down the full tempest of wrath upon our relatively innocent heads. I seemed to be shoving behind knee deep in mud as often as I gained the front seat to ride a while, helpless under the downpour, from which we had not one shred of protection, beside the patient Alan. He was like a man in a trance. All his powers appeared to be concentrated on the spark of life still fluttering within the weary cylinders. In a sense the jeep had become very upto-date, a vehicle of the utmost simplicity. Alan steered and kept his foot upon the accelerator. There was no more gear changing or anything like that: we had done that. I believe that it was at some stage of this journey that we began to call her 'Alice'. I had once loved a girl named Alice, and in much the same way as we loved this jeep; Alice had been difficult, too. When we finally tottered into our tent, finding it still at Hwanju, we had really abandoned Alice. We did not even stuff sacking into her. She would have to take her chance, and so would we. Our tent was now as wet inside as out. It had filled up alarmingly with steaming bodies, typewriters and damp paper, and the stove still going full blast more or less evaporated the water in its immediate vicinity. I had difficulty in locating my despised strip of tatami and to get body space for myself upon it, for the immense good-natured bulk of Lee Ferrero was one of the customers. I think it must have been past midnight. I had just finished my story, and Hal had just sent out the corporal with the last 'take' for the teletype, and Alan was having a look at my 'blacks', lugubriously, seeing if he had forgotten anything that I might have remembered and hoping for a bit more inspiration. At this moment the dark tense face of Lionel Crane appeared through the tent flap. He looked as though he was emerging from the sea with his head sticking up out of the diving suit. "Tommy," he said in a sepulchral voice, "dreadful news. Not a word has got home. Not a line for six days-maybe seven." There was a dead silence in the tent while Lionel filled in the essentials in a voice now devoid of all emotion. He had

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just flown in from Tokyo by way of Seoul and Sinmak and struggled up from there. He had been suspicious of communications and had flown off to check. That was the score. We were, most of us, in the same boat. That was the only relieving feature, and it wasn't very relieving. Heaven knows how much ground we had covered, hurrying back and forward, trying to be everywhere at once, turning night into day, and determined to get the British story home. "Quit fussing. Do your jobs, I'll do mine! " Hal Steward was very white. For a moment or two every man in that steaming sodden dismal tent in the mud field of Hwanju was as near to despair as newsmen are likely to be: too smitten even for recriminations. It had all been in vain. The story of the British triumph had gone unrecorded, bogged down at Eighth Army, as it turned out, a sixday-back log piling up for a bonfire. Nobody had thought to check the stuff through or to put it on the dozens of aircraft flying out every twenty-four hours to Tokyo, and thereby doing a service to Army signals as well as their duty to us. It was a bitter night.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE FALL OF PYONGYANG

ALICE started. Someone gave us a push, more with the intention of heaving Alice out of the way than of anything so remote as making her go-a contemptuous gesture. She fired. Alan de-clutched with commendable presence of mind. A second cylinder came in, doubtfully, not to stay, but to prove that there was still another cylinder. For some illogical reason we felt she might improve. If we left her now she was gone forever, and rather ignobly. By taking her, or going with her as far as she would go, 'we had nothing to lose but Alice'. She might die on the field of 'glory'. The same sergeant mechanic who had told us about the matchsticks filled us up with petrol. He thought it was rather like putting petrol down the drain, but he was accustomed even to that in this wildly profligate army. It was almost a virtue to throw things away. He renewed the matches and cleaned the contact breaker. Alice dried herself out. "She's had it," said the sergeant. "There isn't a goddam thing anyone can do. New engine or scrap heap." "That's where I got her," said Alan. We embarked upon the long trail to Pyongyang with his laughter and good wishes. The rain had stopped, and the earth steamed. Alice steamed. We steamed, still sodden from the night. The sun, leaping over the hills, brought an almost tropical warmth, so that we could shed our outer clothing, and dry out a bit as we went along. The morning was positively balmy. Brigade transport, with an American battalion behind it, was strung out over almost every yard of the diversion to Chungwa. We went that way, first because for all its extra distance it was less chancy for us, we thought, than the main 171

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axis with its frayed tempers and torrential gullies and creeks, and because there might still be a chance that the brigade would leap into the lead. The cheers, cat-calls, guffaws and good wishes of the Argylls, Middlesex and Australians helped us on our way as we chugged slowly past the halted convoys. Once when we parked for a few minutes, to make a reconnaissance on foot to see what was holding things up, an optimistic press photographer stole Alice, but the cheers of the troops warned us, and we managed to head the monster and regain Alice. Alan's indignation was worthy of a Rolls Royce owner, especially when the man had the gall to ask for a ride. On the whole it was an easy road, winding through peaceful villages, inhabited still, but without welcome or demonstration of any kind. There were two or three large barracks, and perhaps the villagers along this route had had their fill of soldiers. There were no major obstacles. At the end, where the road dived steeply through Chungwa, the brigade knocked out a solitary tank guarding the main road flank and emerged into the empty hinterland of the hill barrier. The pass was open, and the cupboard was bare. As the Cavalry roared through we took our chance to make the best sort of dash we could to gain the nearside and hug the road shoulder all the way to Pyongyang. Newly dug trenches furrowed the hillsides dominating all the routes. Carefully prepared gun positions and a few guns frowned upon us. There was scarcely a soul to fire a shot. Whatever defences had been prepared- and it looked considerable, and new- had been abandoned. Perhaps the army had failed to get back in time. Perhaps they felt the position untenable until they had had time to assess their strength and regroup. Perhaps the bulk of the North Korean army was still in the rear, waiting. For whatever reasons the road from Sariwon-the road virtually from Kaesong-to the capital had been left wide open, and Pyongyang was there for the taking. It was a dramatic anticlimax. Even yesterday we had been soberly 'briefed' that 15,000 enemy were certain to defend this 'first capital behind the Iron Curtain' to the last. Three days before it had been 50,000. They weren't there. At the outskirts of

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the city peasants greeted us waving South Korean flags and unafraid. We had counted less than a dozen dead on the road from Chungwa, probably fanatics firing their token shots- 'You can always take one with you'- but they hadn't even achieved that. They miss when you would think it almost impossible not to hit somebody. Half a dozen dug-in tanks and a score of antitank guns lined the curve of a railway embankment as we rode into the industrial suburbs on the western bank of the Taedong River. When Alice had faltered on the gentle hills of the last lap there had been always some kindly, amused follower-on to give us a boost up the back. We were getting rather crumpled, and should really have had a pair of 'buffers' fitted, fore and aft. We could have shunted along nicely then. But indeed Alice had developed a remarkable second wind, probably her swan song, and was going like a bird, or a hen with clipped wings. It was noon when we reached a roundabout at a main crossing less than two hundred yards from the principle river bridge leading to the heart of the city. Roy Macartney was already sitting on a box out of the line of fire and busily hammering out a piece on his typewriter, his chubby face welcoming us with a broad grin from under his Australian hat. But we were up with the hounds, fox or no fox, and it was impossible to arrive anywhere without being welcomed by the Macartney grin, anyway. An anti-aircraft gun was firing flat, making that menacing din, tearing the air to shreds, which these weapons make when used in this way. One or two guns were still firing the odd shot at aircraft overhead, but generally the gun crews-whom we imagined (rightly) to be dashing about with their mobile guns from cover to cover-held their fire for the closest possible welcome. There was a good deal of desultory firing from automatic weapons, but everyone was too excited to take much note of it. At the crossroads the young South Korean General Paik, his round brown face glowing with pleasure and triumph, greeted General Gay and the corps commander, General Milburn, as they came up. His troops had crossed the Taedong a few miles to the north-east in the small hours, and were already

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swooping through the main streets of the city. His troops had also won the race to this point by a bare margin of minutes and had captured the airfield. Leading them on horseback, the general had force-marched his men over the last forty miles much faster than the bogged-down transport could move on the roads, and Milburn and Gay were not niggards with their congratulations. We began to explore. American tanks began to line the river embankment, their guns covering the heart of the city across the water. The bridges were blown. Pyongyang looked peaceful. Pagoda-like structures rose amidst the green foliage of the thickly wooded hills, and the myriad hovels, homes and buildings raised their fascinating curled, and curved tiled roofs, up from the river banks, to sprawl over the hillsides, and cluster round the base of the great red Byzantine-esque block of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, crowned with a stolid, ugly dome. The smoke rose from fires at a score of points, but without the impression of disaster. The anti-aircraft guns continued to fire flat. Otherwise all seemed curiously peaceful and the city little damaged. It was an unhealthy business exploring the industrial suburbs, and we conducted ourselves with discretion. Troops were ferreting out suspects here and there, and it was inadvisable to loiter at road junctions or street crossings. Dashing was not Alice's strong point, and she was not an ideal vehicle for her role. Furthermore, she was rapidly becoming overloaded with 'presents'. Within an hour of our coming the people emerged from their hiding-places in droves, many of them bearing cases of North Korean beer from the local brewery and loading them onto Alice. It seemed to us queer at the time to find such a welcome, here in the enemy stronghold, but these people, like most others, simply wanted to get on with their lives, and were certainly as politically unconscious as their South Korean brothers. They had never chosen their rulers, and I don't suppose they ever expected to have such a task thrust upon them. Pillage, rape and all the accompaniments of war were a natural heritage, and this time it looked very much as if they had escaped lightly. They had good enough cause for rejoicing, for even on this bank of the

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river where the main defences had been intensively bombed for weeks, hundreds of workers' homes and several large blocks of apartments, factories and an imposing industrial 'civic centre', all in course of construction, had escaped the worst. Indeed they were now dangerous in the extreme, affording good cover for the snipers who snipe by night. But in the main it seemed that the experience of Seoul had taught the Koreans not to defend their towns. It was long after dark when Alan and I embarked upon the long road back, and the peaceful aspect of the city had undergone a swift metamorphosis with the dusk. At once the crimson of the fires outlined many buildings with an ethereal beauty, and the occasional flash of the anti-aircraft guns had now become as the slow clash of cymbals accompanying the stutter of small arms. The brigade were marching into the suburbs to which they had opened the way. In the morning they would be able to read the welcoming signs erected by the Cavalry Division: 'You are entering Pyongyang by courtesy of the Cavalry.' And a number of other signs, irritating or amusing according to mood, but all flamboyant. Already it had been tacitly agreed that it would be wise to award the win to the Cavalry. General Paik didn't much care, and his troops need not know. As for us, we stuck to the facts: not that it mattered, anyway, for in war there is no particular virtue in entering any given place first or last. It is always a combined business. Those who lead on one day follow on the next. It had begun to rain again at dusk, not just rain, but becoming a solid downpour without mercy. We took the long loop round, back the way we had come, for there was less chance of getting stuck in the mud. The whole route was deserted and quite 'dragonish'. Half-way we discovered ' that about ten vehicles were strung out behind us. They imagined that we were leading them on some short cut, but, despite our ever more doubtful 15 m.p.h., none of them would accept the lead. We were glad enough of their company. It was a slow, weary, wet trail back to the sodden tent and a very discomfited Hal Steward. We wrote our pieces and handed them in without a word. Nobody asked how the stuff was going out, or whether it was going out. The agency men

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howled the news through the telephone all through the night, and their link men passed it on to the world. The final assault on Pyongyang had been, it seemed, a pretty dangerous affair. II

At 10.45 on the morning of 20th October Alice died quietly by the roadside nine miles short of Pyongyang. A squadron of tanks going full out had pushed us off the shoulder on a slight hill. We couldn't get back. Alice konked 'with her boots on'. She had served us well. Almost at once Colonel Holmes, chief of staff of the Cavalry, went by in his jeep and trailer and answered our signal. Division was on the move, and probably no one less than a full colonel could have held up the traffic even for seconds. We leapt to the trailer. There was no time to brood, and in a moment or two Alice's old carcase was lost to sight. Colonel Holmes had rescued me for the second time. He was in a gay humour this morning, for the frayed nerves of the generals were repaired and all was right with the world. Perhaps the war was over! At any rate, the Cavalry were going home. They would go down to Chinnampo, clearing the small peninsula as they went, and embark from Chinnampo itself. So m1:1ch was certain. Alan and I had met the corps commander for a brief moment just as he was being sniped at by some distant citizen in a field. Generals love to feel that they are 'potted' at now and then, and the corps commander's small, leathery ugly mug wore a broad grin, the wide mouth more like a crack in a pie than ever, and his eyes beaming. "What next, sir?" we had asked. "I've fulfilled my orders," he said. "Here we are." It looked hopeful. If South Korea wasn't properly liberated with the fall of the enemy capital what could be the aim? But MacArthur, Holmes whispered, was even now in his Constellation winging to Pyongyang, and we should be there just in time. An air drop was taking place twenty miles to the north of the city to cut the escape route at Sukchon, and also to attempt to liberate a trainload of American prisoners. The

South Koreans, Yongbyon area. Refugees, Chongchon river road.

Children ready to respond wi~h smiles. Their roof has another hour (p. 227).

Their roof has gone.

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27th Brigade had already gone through, and the Australians were tearing into a full one thousand of the enemy with the bayonet, and slaughtering them, in a real full-scale battalion attack without supporting arms or tanks. Man to man, and all things equal, the Australians proved themselves worth a score or more of the enemy in honest facts and figures. The presence of the American paratroops, absolutely raw and untrained, just over the hill beyond the enemy had prevented the Australians from using support. They didn't need it, anyway. Meanwhile the paratroops had landed unopposed, wounding and killing a few of each other with their wild shooting, and accounting for several unarmed civilians. It had been another good day for the Commonwealth, and we had the detail of all this from Mike James and Bill Sydney Smith who had dropped with the airborne. Bill couldn't keep himself out of these adventures. He had proved himself time and again, even one would have thought to himself, and he had made a considerable reputation with his first-class reporting of this war. But there was always a restlessness behind his lively, penetrating and intense eyes, and the grave mien of his good-looking face. Another 'Lord Jim', I supposed. How full the world was- my world anyway-of 'Lord Jims', and Mr. Jims, even plain 'Jims', feeling this urgent need to prove something or other to themselves so relentlessly. One had to resolve that kind of thing sooner rather than later. But it was a morning full of victory, full of promise and hope, and we relished it for an hour, gay in each other's company. MacArthur was on the airfield and all the galaxy of his private journalistic team from Tokyo. It was not the end: more likely it was merely a beginning. General Milburn said laconically as he passed me: " On to the Ya! u ! " WaltonWalker, a bulging little figure like an animated barrel, climbed into a training plane to fly back to Seoul piloted by the young General Partridge of the U.S.A.F. The war was on to the bitter end, whatever that mjght be. Mel Edwards, the Air Force P.I.O. from Kimpo, flew in and set up shop. Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune, John Rich of I.N.S., Lee Ferrero and ourselves sat on the ground and hammered out brief pieces, and Mel put them M

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on the outgoing aircraft. The story was getting home now, anyway, and we could go into Pyongyang without frustration. The western industrial suburbs of the city were an unpleasant and dangerous place on that ominous Friday, which had dawned so well with promises not to be fulfilled. Even the cavalry would not go home. Many of them would never go home. It was still impossible to cross the river without making a wide detour round on the axis of General Paik's regiments, and there was no hope of transport. There was a good deal of sniping, which with the anti-aircraft fire continued all through the day and night. Alan and I, joined by Gordon Walker and Steve Barber, walked the river front, and lost ourselves in silent mazes of streets to be sniped at rather unpleasantly. Towards evening we walked right into a small and disgusting vortex of war, murder and rape, and managed to bring a jeep load of military police to the rescue before a conflagration should start from this beginning. But such incidents were notable for their rarity. Cavalry Division had come up and established itself in one of the factory buildings, and we spent the night in the midst of more sounds of war than we had heard since Seoul. In the morning Steve and I, impatient of transport and delay, set out together on foot for the heart of Pyongyang across the river. It was a grey morning. The last shots of the snipers and the last round from the last anti-aircraft gun had heralded the dawn. All was peace. III

There was no menace as Steve and I made our way to the riverside under the guns of the tanks lined up along the embankment. From the further shore there was no sight or sound of warfare. A variety of native craft, skilfully ferried by long sweeps, or oars, aft, plied back and forth, loaded to their waterlines with all manner of people. There were very few troops, and mainly South Koreans. Pyongyang was already in the backwash. The spearheads had leapt twenty miles onward, and those who followed had not yet arrived to fill the gap. It

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was indeed a remarkable victory, as unexpected by the enemy, it seemed, as by ourselves. For Pyongyang was still 'warm' from the going of its masters, of the infamous tyrants who had imposed a domination, more cynical and thorough in its gross exploitation of human kind, than anything that has gone before. Here the welcome of the people had the genuine ring. I believe it had been genuine enough all the way, but here it was fully aware. For these were not peasants. We were ferried across the river in a tiny flat-bottomed craft in which we balanced precariously, fearful to move a muscle lest we should decant ourselves into the cold stream. Armed men wearing armbands, and announcing themselves as the resistance, ran to shake our hands. They had helped greatly to find the snipers. Old men and women, young men and women, made tentative steps towards us, watching for signs that we might be approachable, as we climbed a broad steep street up from the riverside, and, sure of our friendliness, ran to shake our hands. Military traffic was beginning to roar through the wide main thoroughfares of the town, unhindered by the usual tangle of wires and cables which were here, though often dangerously, still overhead. A loudspeaker van blared popular songs. Somewhere an accordion played. We found our way easily to the live heart of the city, discovering one of the anti-aircraft guns with its crew, newly killed, flung carelessly into a small handcart with the warm blood dripping from their ears and mouths. With great good fortune we walked almost directly into the Russian Embassy, to be hailed with a whoop of welcome from Dwight Martin of Life and Time. Dwight had an expensive jeep of his own, and was able to be hours ahead of most people on this kind of job. Even we, on our feet, were a long way ahead of the multitude, and our walk had paid us well. While almost everyone, including the U.S. security personnel, were struggling round by road we had a clear hour or two with all the 'treasure' places intact. The leading troops on their way through had had time to discover cases of tinned caviare, and the embassy gardens were littered with opened tins flung away in disgust and their priceless contents trampled in the mud. We breakfasted on dry

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biscuits, caviare and champagne and explored the embassy. There was some valuable radio equipment and masses of documents. The ambassador's private office bore all the signs of an unpremeditated and hurried departure. It was almost as if the staff had 'knocked off for tea' and would be back at any. moment. Filing cabinets were filled with documents, and bookcases loaded with propaganda books and pamphlets. On the ambassador's desk was a large album of photographs. I looked through it and saw from the inscription that it was a presentation to the ambassador from Kim 11 Sung, Dictator of North Korea. I tucked it underneath my arm. An hour later the security boys had made a shambles of the embassy, 'blowing' the empty safes, bringing down a good part of the house, and destroying everything of value in their usual way. We had been just in time and had to make the most of our short lead. We jumped into Dwight's jeep, grabbed a young student with a few words of English, and dashed off. The Hungarian Embassy had been abandoned equally hurriedly, its cellars full of Russian champagne. The Chinese had been barely represented, and had occupied a small building in an alley, from which they had cleared everything before departing. Pyongyang was clearly a Russian city. We explored the Russian colony, quiet houses and gardens surrounding the best hotels, all exclusively for Russian use. In all there were the signs of hurried departure. Bottles of beer had been left half finished on hotel tables. Deep air-raid shelters had been made, and fortified with bags of rubble and straw, for the principal buildings. Here and there half-destroyed buildings smouldered. The fine Opera House was one of the few important places completely gutted, and the Posts and Telegraphs was in little better plight. Everywhere throughout the city huge propaganda posters portrayed the 'evil and cruel' Americans and the 'magnificent, munificent and gentle' Russians, and the inevitable vast portraits of Stalin and Kim II Sung grinned ridiculously from prominent positions. At the heart of the city we entered the Russian commissary building, comparable with the American PX , and stuffed with wines, liqueurs, caviare, perfumes, and all the luxuries of life,

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for the use of the Russian colony. But there was no time to lose, and we urged our guide to lead us to the nerve centre of communist intrigue and power, the Holy of Holies, the seat of the Dictator. He led us in some awe to an impressive building on the wooded high ground above the city. This was the Presidium. The whole structure was carefully draped with rope netting and interlaced with foliage, almost invisible from the air. On the first floor quilted double doors led from an ante-chamber to the impressive inner room of Kim Il Sung. There was the long approach, over an expanse of rich mulberry-coloured carpet to the massive, carven, polished desk. One imagined the powerful little ghoul ogling his victims as they made this wretched journey. Plaster casts of Stalin and Kim Il Sung flanked the desk, and someone had thought to decapitate the communist leader and had gone off with his head-for it was not there. Heavy black silk curtains, crimsonlined, hung from the tall windows, and but for the headless cast, all was as it had been left by its occupant. The furnishings of the desk were all in place; the deep upholstered chair but recently vacated. From this seat, perhaps less than twenty-four hours ago, Kim Il Sung had sought to exercise his supreme tyrannical power. Where was he now? It was rumoured that he was in hiding, that he had not left the city, and soon all the likely and unlikely places would be ransacked in vain to discover him. It seemed to Steve and I, standing there, a curious business. Why this sudden flight, seemingly at the last moment? And why should the Russians have flown at all? Were they not 'Allies' with every right to have an embassy in North Korea, and every reason to rely on the immunity granted them by diplomatic privilege? It would have been an odd situation had they stayed, and one wondered more and more why they had not done so. For surely they do not 'lack gall'. But it seemed to us probable that Russian aid had been genuinely expected by the North Koreans up to the last moment to turn the tide. Even perhaps by Colonel-General, the Russian ambassador. Less than three days before our coming we learned that all services, electric light, water and drainage, had been functioning.

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In schoolrooms we examined large charts on the walls used to demonstrate to the scholars the monumental growths of private enterprise. We had seen these on a smaller scale in other schools north of the Parallel. The immense ramifications of such companies as Unilever and Edison were portrayed as trees, sprouting shoots from their small beginnings, and growing vast branches, geographically labelled, and dated with the years during which these branches had sprung. Back in the main streets minor riots were breaking out as the people struggled and fought for whatever loot in the way of food they could lay hands on. The air of peace had deteriorated since our quiet morning walk. The armleted and armed self-styled United Nations North Koreans were warming to their work, conducting witch hunts from which the unfortunate objects of their denunciations had to be rescued forcefully. With Dwight we made a final circuit of the city. In the vast unfinished cavern of the Roman Catholic Cathedral troops had been billeted, and the whole interior of the huge building partitioned with bare boards. The prison did not reveal its secrets, and was heavily guarded by the time we reached it. Bombs and booby traps were expected, and it would be hours before anyone might get in or get out. One thing was certain : military government were going to have a difficult task without the help of any civil authority. There were none in hiding here to emerge from their shelters to give a hand. It was well after noon when I made my way back alone to the river to be ferried across with a boatload of peasants. I was weary and a little surfeited. It was eighteen days since I had my clothes off, day or night, or washed below the chin. This is a very comfortable condition, but it can't go on forever. A wandering jeep lifted me to Cavalry division, and I found Alan satisfied with the day's yield, and in the same mood. Together we went down to the airport, already filled with craft, and with the evidence of a grim tail-piece to our story. Half a dozen gaunt, bearded, tousle-headed men with the spectral look of those who have shed the outer protective skins of life, confronted us with their pale, wondering eyes. They were Americans, prisoners of the North Koreans for months, and with all Korea burned indelibly through their

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aching feet into their very souls. They told us of their escape. They had been in the prison train and had bolted at a stopping place, not knowing, as we were all soon to know, that the train had almost at once become a train of death, to provide another hideous abomination of war. These few had seen a chance and taken it, and had saved their lives by minutes. Their comrades had been shot like dogs in a ditch before the relieving columns could reach them. These quiet young men, drinking tomato juice from tins in great astonished gulps, spoke of the comparative kindness of the peasants throughout all their long trek, mainly by night. Peasants everywhere had helped them with a little extra food wherever possible. They had not suffered brutality. It was simply that the privations and rations which are a commonplace to Asiatics mean starvation and death to Western Europeans and Americans. Soon after dusk Alan and I found a C 46 to take us to Kimpo. We had a feeling that a distinct phase of the war was over and that something new and terrible might be beginning. I wanted to think, to try to digest and evaluate all this mass of experience since the Inchon landing. Besides, all at once we felt divorced from the larger world. What was going on? What was the impact of all this? Were we alone in our terror of MacArthur's megalomania and delusions of grandeur? Perhaps by now other and more important events elsewhere were occupying the minds of men. At any rate, it was time to rest a while, and it was definitely high time to have a bath!

PART THREE

THE ROAD TO RUIN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE KOREAN REHEARSAL I

THE KOREAN war was won. The armies of the enemy had been destroyed or captured, and further effective resistance was impossible. American, South Korean and British troops were advancing virtually unopposed into the heart of North Korea. But in my mind and the minds of all with whom I came into mental contact there was great anxiety. At best, I thought, the Korean Rehearsal was over, and one could only pray that the full-scale production would not take place. I wanted to get away for a few days quietly to think; to try to digest all that I had seen and learned in these timeless weeks which had seemed a lifetime. I held the belief, which I had felt before when travelling almost the whole length of the footlights of the 'Iron Curtain', that politics, the sharp division of the world, might blind people to old strategic realities. Russia's machinations and moves in Turkey, Bulgaria and Western Thrace, for example, and the seeking of an outlet to the Mediterranean other than the Black Sea. And the Russian threat to the Middle East. These things were as old as Russian imperialism, and would be as menacing if a Tsar ruled all the Russias. The work I had been engaged upon before leaving England had called for some slight study of the Far East at the end of the nineteenth century, and I was inclined to look at things from a military, strategic and economic viewpoint rather than from a political angle. The situation in the Far East in the mid-nineties had been worse in many ways than it was in 1950, but there had been little cable communication, no wireless, and no big 'glamour' build-up. The average citizen of the world had known almost nothing about it. The immense casualties suffered in the battle of Mukden, far greater in one day than 187

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the total American casualties in Korea, had made no impression on the world. I thought that it was absurd to expect the new China, slowly becoming integrated under one government, to tolerate the United States or the United Nations on her Manchurian frontier if she could prevent it. Not because China's government is communist, but because great nations in the recorded history of the world do not permit these things if they can help it. Why then should China, strongly suspecting the goodwill and the motives of the United States and of the United Nations, sit by tamely while these things took place? I could not believe it possible. I thought that the only chance of China sitting tight would be the consideration that sooner or later the U.S.A. and the U.N. would have to leave Korea, and it would then revert to China or Russia without the need to fire a shot. But would the U.S.A. or the U.N. leave Korea? China might think not-for it was already apparent to all observers that democracy is not a saleable commodity but an evolutionary growth in certain circumstances. It might take a long time to take root, even given the circumstances, in a peasant country like Korea, accustomed only to tyranny of one kind or another. So that the U.S. and U.N. role might be reasonably that of conquerors and colonisers. It was unrealistic to suppose that China and Russia would accept U.S. and U.N. aims at their face value. Formosa was a clear indication of the reverse from the Chinese point of view, and the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers made no secret of his desires and ambitions in the Far East. Thinking these things, I believed that there was a more than even chance that China would come to the assistance of North Korea in the defence of her frontier, and this would mean inside North Korean territory, for no one believes that the defence of a frontier begins at the frontier. All that week in Tokyo I felt sick and weary. The humid atmosphere seemed to induce heavy catarrh in all the forward Korean correspondents who had lived mainly on a diet of dust. My shoulder had begun to pain me severely, and there was nothing much I could do about it. My friends were all restless. Foreign editors were again disposing their forces.

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Louis Heren of The Times was going home; others were returning to their normal stations, to Delhi, Singapore, Teheran and Cairo; still more were off to Hanoi and Formosa. It looked as if French Indo-China would be the big story if the Korean war fizzled out. My office told me to take things easy for a spell, but Tokyo with its military atmosphere, its controlled press and censorship, is not a place for rest, and there was too much on my mind. On 24th October G.H.Q. reported United Nations forces across the Chongchon River and the enemy utterly defeated . 26,000 prisoners had been taken in twenty-four hours to swell the official total bag above 120,000. Enemy casualties were put at 320,000, while the United Nations casualties were comparable with the deaths from road accidents in New York and London. At first the United Nations' aim was not clear from the G.H.Q. briefings, and it was thought that only South Koreans were going north to the frontier. But on the 25th G.H.Q. declared the war virtually over; that the enemy as a fighting force was destroyed, and that all troops were heading for the Yalu River. The U.S. 24th Division was sweeping unopposed up the west coast road. The British 27th Commonwealth Brigade had secured a large bridgehead across the Chongchon, and were consolidating the difficult terrain in the river system, having captured Pakchon and the ancient walled city of Y ongbyon. In the centre the South Koreans were pushing up the main road from Huichon to Kanggye where the enemy were thought to have established a last stronghold. Other South Koreans were plodding steadily up the long long trail of the east coast road. On 24th October the remaining enemy, despite their immense losses, were officially estimated at 57 ,000 and the elements of sixteen divisions were said to be in being. On the 25th the figure of 57 ,000 was revised to 25,000, and it was disturbing even at that time that military intelligence had never been correct in its enemy estimates, or even nearly correct. Towards the end of the week faint warning notes began to sound in the G.H.Q. reports. Guerilla activity in the rear areas began to increase and seemed to me to have a distinct pattern

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as though directed from a central headquarters. At the same time Pekin radio broadcast that the North Korean command relied almost entirely on G.H.Q. briefings for their knowledge, and were among the most attentive followers of these dreary sessions. Meanwhile the general advance began to lose momentum from the natural causes of supply difficulties. Airfields were now in full use by the U.S.A.F. as far north as Sinanju on the Chongchon, and the flying box cars of Combat Cargo Command were dumping huge quantities of food, ammunition and clothing within easy reach of the forward troops. These box cars had now seen a great deal of heavy duty and were due for all-round servicing. The flow of supplies from the U.S.A. had also been eased to more normal dimensions. On 26th October, for the first time since hostilities opened, B 29s of the US.AF. engaged solely in peaceful missions, dropping leaflets over eight remaining enemy towns, including the temporary capital of Kanggye, while a Dakota, known as 'The Voice', cruised here and there blaring from the skies an invitation to surrender. On the 27th G.H.Q. announced that the mission of the United Nations Forces was to clear Korea, and on the 27th the South Koreans were on the Yalu River. At the same time there were vague reports of enemy resistance, and a deterioration in the weather, a warning of the bleak winter ahead. Bernard Forbes of the B.B.C., and Frank Hawley, Tokyo correspondent of The Times and a very old 'Japan Hand', persuaded me to take a complete rest away from it all at least for a long week-end. I thought that it might be now or never, and they thought so, too. We had decided to let Frank guide us to a purely Japanese inn where we could relax in novel surroundings which would mean escape. I stayed up most of Friday night, 27th-28th October, to send a message as near as possible to the news before leaving. It was an ominous message. Reports were hardening that Chinese forces of the 40th Corps had crossed the Yalu River on 18th October to protect the electrical installations in North Korea which were vital to Manchuria. G.H.Q. labelled these Chinese forces as 'Chinese Koreans', and stuck to it that China would not inter-

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vene. The situation was rather confusing. Resistance was reported on all sectors, and an estimated 15,000 enemy were harrying the rear. Meanwhile the 1st Marine Division landed at Wonsan and began to move north-west towards the reservoir areas. These troops were still under command of the 10th Corps under General Almond, and completely detached from, and independent of, the Eighth Army. According to experienced American observers this remarkable split in command was due to the rivalry for General MacArthur's favour between Almond, his ex-Chief of Staff, and Walton-Walker. Agency messages in the early hours, emanating from reporters I knew to be reliable, indicated that the South Koreans in the centre and on the right flank of the 27th Brigade were heavily engaged. Eighth Army insisted that if this was so then the enemy was North Korean, or at worst Chinese-trained North Korean. Having sent off the substance of all this information, I went off to the Pavilion of the Ever-increasing Clouds perched high upon a shoulder of the hills. II

Bernard and I followed Frank Hawley's big shooting brake through the ramifications of Tokyo at last to the open country, with the salt tang of the sea coming in on the breeze over the fiats and the dry stony beds of the watercourses, where lay the occasional stark skeletons of abandoned fishing-boats. Frank's chauffeur had driven for the British Embassy before the war and knew all the difficulties to be encountered in this new world and how best to avoid them. A clash with the U.S. military police was a very grave matter indeed for a European, and would be likely to lead to serious trouble. These patrols, swooping about in their jeeps, gloried in their supreme power, and had forced an Australian editor to turn round and drive back thirty miles into Tokyo at 15 m.p.h. They had then laughed, abused him, and told him to be on his way. There was no redress against this sort of thing, and it could very easily lead to murder. Frank had to be particularly

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careful, for he had the honour to be the seventeenth newspaper correspondent to have been expelled by order of General McArthur in his attempts to control the press outside as well as inside Japan. All newspapers, British and American, had closed their ranks against this too open fascist behaviour, and the general had been forced to rescind the order. It is necessary to draw attention to these unfortunate circumstances if the oppression which lies so heavily upon the British is to be understood, for police dogged one's footsteps everywhere armed with this insolence and power to which we are completely alien. But the journey was unmolested. The long tentacles of the great city of Tokyo stretch out for miles into the countryside until halted by the foothills which rise like courtiers to surround the majesty of Fuji-san. The narrow streets, still further narrowed by telegraph poles loosely looped with wires, are lined with houses and shops so lightly built of wood that it seems that a puff of wind must blow them down. In these streets the vigorous life of Japan surges with a great vitality. Bicycles, bicycle 'rickshaws', and innumerable bicycle carts and barrows, jostle and dodge ponderous motor buses with glowing furnaces at their backs belching smoke and fumes. Japanese women in brilliant kimonos totter on wooden clogs and sandals, and their babes peer gravely from nests of quilted silks on their mothers' backs. By night these streets are channels of light and colour, gay with paper lanterns, which even Japanese police swing at the crossings, hung at every shop front and on every pole and post, while neatly arranged fruits and vegetables cascade in brilliant masses of colour from the seemingly everopen shops. It is, at first, nerve-racking to drive through this maze of humanity, none of whom seem to have the least awareness of the traffic, and of their constant flirtations with death. It was a relief to emerge at last into the open country, to climb swiftly into the hills, rich with the auburn of autumn and the glory of the red maple. The Japanese, Frank said, have an intense nostalgia for the autumn, and prisoners and exiles yearn most terribly for their homeland at this season of the year.

Cry Korea. Mother is dead in the ditch (p. 159).

No-man's land under the cone of the burning hill. American shells bursting (p. 246). G.I.'s lay exhausted under the road embankment (p. 246).

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Some seventy miles out of Tokyo we swung off the road at the crest of a hill, and followed the shooting brake steeply through a double gateway into a shaded courtyard. It was the summit of Odurami. A cluster of three or four wooden chalets were built into the hillside and linked to the central chalet by covered ways. The owner, his wife, two daughters, and servants, greeted us with deep obeisance as they lined up to receive us on the polished floor of the main porch. A small chalet had been assigned to us, and we left our shoes at the door, slipped our feet into linen slippers, and followed the two daughters over the highly polished wooden passageways to the main room, overlooking from its verandahs the whole depth of the valley. Mrs. Hawley, her small boy and the Japanese nurse, were of the party, and to all of them, except Bernard and myself, the formalities and atmosphere were a commonplace. Frank had lived for more than twenty years in Japan, and is able to think in the ideas and symbols of this strange race, which had maltreated him severely throughout his internment in the war. A shrine to Shinto stood in a tiny grotto outside our door to help in fending off evil spirits, and by night, said Frank, a watchman would beat a gong hourly to enable all to sleep soundly without fear of fire. I felt that I should probably sleep more soundly without the gong and the hourly 'all's well'. The room was cool, and would probably become too cool in the night, but, despite its fragile construction and the delicacy of the sliding doors and windows, running smoothly in polished grooves, there was a sense of firmness, as though this delicate structure was spun securely like a web under the brow of Odurami, and partook of the strength and quality of the rock. A single flower stood in a tall vase on a shallow dais, and it was like a simple altar decoration to the austere pattern of the kakimono which adorned the wall of the alcove. Silken cushions lay upon the tatami covering the floor. lt was a small room, in my mind's eye, of no more than eight mats, for it is the dimensions of these tatami mats, each six feet by three feet, which determines the size of Japanese rooms, exclusive of the raised dais and alcove. The two daughters, sinking to their knees in the grace of curtsies, knelt always to N

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open and to close the sliding doors which opened upon a small inner verandah, and a narrow outer verandah, like the bridge of a ship. Almost at once green tea was brought in delicate china cups. It was impossible not to relax to this atmosphere of quiet ceremony and exquisite peace, as though one had entered a monastery. Presently the father, the patron, made a deep obeisance, kneeling, and, with his hands firmly planted, lowering his head to the floor with a curious dignity. Frank then spoke freely and fluently with him in Japanese, ordering our dinner, and at the same time giving precise instructions for my care. Upon this he consulted me from time to time, but I was content to place myself in his hands and the hands of my host. I felt that, should I have any special desires, I would be able to make myself understood. I needed rest, above all. The patron at once assured Frank that no Americans would come to disturb the peace of his inn. When all this was understood, we regained our shoes at the door and walked out through the gardens upon the hillside, where from a grove of trees flourishing on a shallow plateau we could look out over the great cleft of the valley to the distant hills sheltering the white majesty of Fuji-san. In the grove many of the trees bore little labels begging passersby to 'love this tree', and not to hurt it in any way. The strange anomalies of this race occupied our minds as Frank Hawley talked in his rich yet fretful voice, and his large fair eighteenth-century Englishman's face became alive. Here were exquisite courtesies, gentleness, precise formulas of art, careful and distinguished craftsmanship, remarkable attention to detail, barbaric splendour, austere ceremonial, and here also was barbarity, cruelty, crudity of behaviour, and an almost complete poverty of artistic creation and thought. Only men like Frank Hawley with a complete knowledge of the inexact language could hope to understand the Japanese from within their thought patterns, to contemplate the dried-up-or perhaps non-existent- springs from which no genius or creation might spring, other than their overflowing vitality and life force which was again bursting the bounds of their mountainous islands.

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Perhaps it was their knowledge of the absence of the seeds of creation which induced them to cherish and preserve, with so much ritual, formality and ceremony, all that they had inherited or derived from the Chinese. It was, at least, a joy for us to indulge these thoughts for an idle hour from all the horrors bearing down upon us, and it put me in sympathy with my surroundings. There was at once a chill in the bright clear air as the sun left the valley in shadow, and the 'ever-increasing clouds' encompassed the hills in their slow ceremony of constant movement. When we returned our dinner was ready to be served by the two daughters and their mother, now brilliantly kimonoed. The dinner lasted four hours. It was, I believe, the most exquisite meal I have ever tasted, and its fragrance lingers in my senses. We ate with chopsticks-myself for the first time-and this gave to the meal a leisured quality so that each mouthful had an importance and savour of its own. I tasted a great variety of dishes, tasting them almost as much with my eyes and nostrils as with my palate. It rested both my mind and my digestion. At first there were clear soups of a wonderful fragrance, served in delicate wide-mouthed bowls of china. One took the bowl in the two hands and the aroma curled into our nostrils as the nectar embraced our tongues. These soups were distilled from mushrooms, clams, and the subtle flavours of such sea foods as tahroa. Dishes of king prawns, dipped in batter and plunged into boiling fat, were followed by cubes of red and white fish, raw, with soya sauce. Trout from a nearby lake were lightly grilled with slices of lemon and others poached with herb sauces. There followed sukiyaki sizzling in a deep round pan placed above a charcoal fire in the centre of the table, and from this aromatic pan we selected tender morsels of meat and the shoots of vegetables to our tastes. Finally we ate the firm luscious orange-gold flesh of ripe persimmons. Throughout, hot saki was provided in elegant vases of china, and tiny fragile cups at our elbows were constantly replenished by the ever-attentive girls kneeling at our sides. The whole meal was served and partaken in a slow ceremony, unhurried, infinitely satisfying.

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It was close on midnight, and the child had already slept for some hours in an adjoining room with the nurse, when my friends took their leave, and the solitude and peace of the valley and the quiet house took hold of me. I stood for a while on the outer verandah with the awareness rather than the sight of the great cleft of the valley. The moon, just past the full, seemed to race the restless clouds which filled the heavens with ever-changing patterns. Presently one of the girls knelt by my side, raised herself with an effortless movement and led me to the room prepared for me and embracing all this spaciousness of sky. A second girl had brought an iron pot of glowing charcoal with which she replenished the fire in a square china vessel on the floor. She performed this act with long silver needles which she used as though they were an extension of her own fingers. I was invited to undress, and was clothed in two kimonos, an under kimono of a plain beige colour in which, I understood, I was to sleep, and the other of a deep purple silk. One of the girls then led me to the bath which had been prepared for me. The bath was a deep wooden tub not more than three feet square, and perhaps four feet deep, and overflowing. The water was far too hot, and when I was able to bear it and had washed myself from a basin I soaked peacefully for half an hour. I had taken the bath much hotter than the heat to which I was accustomed, but it did not seem to have enervated me or induced sleepiness. Rather was I very wide awake. When I returned to my room the bed was laid out on the tatami, two thick quilts beneath me, and lighter quilts on top. (By day the bedding is stored in cupboards.) One of the daughters knelt by my bedside tending the glowing charcoal of my fire. My clothes, I saw, had been folded with great care. I indicated to the girl that I would like tea, and presently it was brought. A bedside lamp was within reach of my hand, cigarettes, writing pad and pencil at my side. The whole atmosphere was restful beyond anything I had experienced, and the girls so delicately attuned to my service that they effaced themselves completely, or not, as though my thoughts were translated before they took concrete shape. Without a spoken word these girls, and their sisters throughout Japan,

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would wash me with care and partake of the bath and bed, sensing the exact degree of playfulness, intimacy or seclusion in the feeling of man. This night I desired solitude. When she had satisfied herself that I was content, the girl touched the tatami with her head, rose, knelt again in that effortless movement of the curtsy to slide the door sufficiently to permit her exit, and I was alone. We had all talked a great deal, and I did not propose to pursue sleep. I would sleep if sleep possessed me at any hour and for any length of time. First I must slow down the seething of my thoughts and discover the strength of my anxieties, and become unaware of the beating of my heart. Above my couch in calligraphy- if that is the right wordboth bold and delicate, Japanese symbols on a scroll of silk expressed: "The Pure Wind Drives Out Vulgarity." This had been painted in exquisite brushwork, the characters and form reminding me of a Topolski drawing, to mark the occasion when the Emperor's brother had occupied this little suite of rooms. I was suffering from the shock of the realisation these weeks of war had forced me to face. It was the realisation of the 'atom mind'-for these are the words I used to express my fears in my letters to England at the time. I was appalled at the evaluation of human life and the long-range destruction of humanity which this war had brought home to me as it had not been brought home before. I think this was caused by the absence of enemy activity of this kind. It was the war of the machine against flesh and blood, magnified by modern weapons to enormous proportions, but which had been inherent in such episodes as the Zulu War. It seemed to me that it was an easy step from this kind of warfare, bombing and blasting the defenceless, to the atom. It seemed to me that men had begun to intrude upon the province of 'God' in spheres beyond their exact knowledge and capacity. The implication of this kind of warfare, the sombre melancholy of the measured words of John Donne, which in themselves held the tolling of a bell in the hearts of men, and which had

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been brought to the consciousness of a great host by Hemingway, had been forgotten ... for whom the bell tolls... . On this night I had slowly to unravel the skein of my thoughts. I lay on my back cultivating peace, and from time to time throughout the night clarified the hubbub which swelled upon me by expressing my thoughts with pencil and paper by my side. I was obsessed with the immense spiritual hunger of mankind which cannot be satisfied by 'isms'. Neither the commissar nor the psychologist of the Western world can replace faith, religion and the priest. This spiritual hunger seemed to have created a vacuum in the hearts and minds of men. Without faith the ideals of mankind were unattainable, and in this perhaps was the seed of self-destruction. The abuse of the word democracy in both word and deed had almost rendered it an epithet as meaningless as communism. My thoughts were for some time at random. Frank Hawley, making me aware of the thought symbols of the East, had revealed that the Russian communists carried the seeds of their own failure with them into the Far East. By attempting to industrialise Eastern peasants, and to destroy their age-old language symbols, their banners and shrines, the communists will destroy themselves. None is more patient than a peasant. None is more resilient. When communism is no more, I thought, peasants will till the soil. But these thoughts were incidental to the deeper theme of war. I strove to see the Americans clearly. Acute observers attributed their difficulties to their lack of dignity, and perhaps this is fundamental. It is certain that tyrannies seek first to destroy the dignity in man. It seemed to me a curious anomaly that a race believing in the ridiculous principle that all men are equal should without a qualm apply it only to themselves and consider lives in their way of little or no account. And this insistence on equality deprives them of leaders. It deprives them of soldiers. It deprives them of standards at which to aim, so that they revert easily to squalor. Above all, it deprives them of humility and gives them an aggressive tendency. And how ghastly it would be if men were equal-or even born equal-for they would be forced to occupy positions

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above or below their stations, and even those who were 'equal' would be unequal with the rest. Besides, it is a form of denial of individualism and a herd desire. I have detached these few thoughts from the mass of writing with which I covered the paper as I dawdled through the night, the day, and again the night and day, not because they are more or less coherent than others, or more relevant, but because they reveal my state of mind, and do not unduly (l hope) disturb this part of my story. I think I must have slept fairly well, and ate sparingly of delicious omelette and baby lobsters. It was almost evening when I roused myself sufficiently to go out. I went down into the dark valley in the misty twilight and the hills grew up and surrounded me without enveloping me. Silver pampas grasses lay like bright foam upon the lower slopes, and the deep ruddy tones of autumn had faded into the dusk. The dark pines were a deep bold purple frieze, a fierce crest crowning the battlements of the ridge of Odurami behind me, and the words of the Song of Solomon came into my mind: 'terrible as an army with banners .. .' And the valley opened out in that miraculous way of ever-changing wonder that is always the same and always different, like the sea. Far away the mountains rose in vast misty receding walls to the faint clouded outline of Fuji. I could see the twinkle of lights from small villages deep in the heart of the valley, and when I returned, slowly climbing the grassy path, which seemed to lead up over the battlements of the pines to the sky itself, the Pavilion of the Ever-increasing Clouds was like an eyrie lit by a single light beneath the summit. Again I did not sleep, but lay awake listening to the downpour of the rain beating upon the roof of the little chalet. I felt rested. Perhaps foolishly I had eschewed Japanese food, shirking the elaborate performance and the patience and appreciation with which I would have eaten it. The feeling that I 'ought' to work fretted me, and I had with difficulty announced my intention to my host. (He had been sending me little messages. 'Will the Noble English Gentleman,' they all began, 'breakfast?') For an hour after my return from the walk he had squatted at my table with his two daughters

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kneeling, and with the aid of a dictionary some thought was conveyed between us. As a result I ate hurriedly a mushroom omelette, a persimmon, and drank two small vases of hot saki. At nine o'clock my host took his leave, and Haruye, the daughter who had made me her particular care, sat by my feet. I worked for three hours. After an hour I realised that Haruye was gently chafing my feet, which were chilled, and this without impeding my thoughts. She didn't utter a sound. I wanted to try to consider what the outcome of this Korean tragedy might be. It seemed to me that the United Nations had embarked upon an impossible task, for it is impossible to 'liberate' a shackled country like South Korea except to its shackles. If it is intended to protect and to guide South Korea on the road to some sort of democracy this must imply conquest and colonisation, and the slow evolutionary steps of the colonial pattern. At least it must imply long occupation. But I could not believe in American 'democracy', and I could not believe that all her missionary zeal to propagate a 'way of life' to which she herself aspires but dimly could result in anything but disaster for the 'saved' and possibly for those who seek to save. In fact, up to the present, precisely this had happened. (Perhaps what is called 'sin' is the only condition from which anyone can be saved.) I could not see an end to this war in Korea, for I could not see a clear purpose. Conquest and colonisation, I thought, would be a clear and reasonable purpose, and the United States is desperately in need of colonies. For America is a great imperial power lacking an empire, and Marshall Aid is, in fact, a modern version of colonisation pointing the American tragedy. As she pours out her wealth of production and dollars she develops the resources of many lands, orientating their trade her way. But she does not need their trade, and it is often an embarrassment. America has arrived too late, for the kind of world in which she might have risen to the heights has ceased to exist. In the fashioning of an empire her varied peoples might have found themselves, and their focal point of duty and service. And I thought, too, that tyranny of whatever kind is always bound to succeed for a time against 'freedom and democracy',

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especially where there is a backward race and room for rapid improvement. And there is enormous room for improvement, a vast amount of 'slack' to be taken up, throughout all the East. It is easy meat for tyrants and dictators. Any virile and determined tyranny, be it of Genghis Khan, Peter the Great, or our recent Mussolini and Hitler, are certain to achieve swift material improvements- if this is their aim. But when the slack has been taken up the tyranny begins to crumble. For the people, recognising that the tyranny has outlived its usefulness, and however they may be downtrodden, will rise up and fling it aside with all its fine phrases. That will surely happen in Russia. Nothing goes on forever except evolution, and perhaps the one sure thing is that in the final count the will of the people prevails. Their patience, their endurance and their humanity give them victory against all things but truth. And the truth is democracy and faith, not in the corrupt and garbled version of the United States, nor even in the more advanced democracy of Britain, for each country must evolve in its own pattern. Democracy, as we know it, is simply an incident in evolution just as communism is an incident in the evolution of some backward countries. When I awoke I felt entirely refreshed. The rain had washed the valley. There was no sun, but all was vivid and sharp with an astonishing purity of light. Wisps of cloud lay upon the hillsides and the air had an astringent quality which seemed to bring new life to me, as though a skin had peeled away from body and mind leaving me refreshed in an almost miraculous way. While I watched from my balcony the clouds grew with great speed and the valley was hidden, so that I was alone, wrapped in the mist. Haruye brought in a sprig of maple for me, and replenished my charcoal fire. Then she insisted that I should wear my socks. When I had dressed myself in my own clothes and walked to the look-out in the gardens, Haruye ran after me bringing a Japanese sunshade to shelter me from the rain, and coyly, half laughing and hiding her face in her sleeve, took my arm. I thought, what a pity it is that these girls fill their mouths with gold and silver teeth. It was impossible not to be fully repaired. I regarded my

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beard with impatience, almost horror. I bathed and shaved the grizzled grey hairs, and after a few moments my ginger moustache followed the beard into memory. The face which confronted me was mine again, for better or for worse, and I settled down to write a complete summary of the campaign and my conclusions for airmail. The Korean Rehearsal was over: I had to purge myself of it. III

I called my appreciation of the situation 'The Korean Rehearsal' and sent it home. It ran to about six thousand words, and gave chapter and verse for most of my fears, particularly in regard to the logistical problems, the great waste of clothing, food, ammunition, which might prove an insupportable burden even to the United States in a major war. Here is a digest of this gloomy document, leaving out all the instances which have been told in the body of my book. "American troops forming the core of the United Nations army face an enemy of unpredictable strength and purpose, of undoubted courage and great powers of endurance, in the bleak mountainous country of North Korea. At best they must endure a bitter winter of snow and ice and intense cold to which they, and most of their brothers in arms, are ill-accustomed, and at the same time they must be ever on the alert against guerilla raids or dangerous outflanking movements carried out under cover of the long nights over almost inaccessible mountain passes. Their fighting and reconnaissance patrols must be unfalteringly active and grimly determined. And at any moment they must be prepared to fight for more than their lives, perhaps against overwhelming odds. "But there has been something of a rehearsal, and I have had the privilege of watching it. From Inchon to its present positions north of Pyongyang I accompanied the United States forces, the marines, the Cavalry Division, and the infantry divisions, on their easy march, supported by an immense weight of artillery and aircraft. This experience could not and did not temper these troops in the furnace of war, nor did it discover their metal. But it is all there is to go upon. "

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"The glamorising of this war against an enemy virtually unable to hit back with anything more than indifferent small arms, shoddy but efficient automatic weapons, and a few inadequate tanks and mortars, has been on a scale never before known, and has done a dire disservice to troops. If the phrases constantly used, not only by journalists, but also by senior military spokesmen, are to be accepted, then the field manuals of the armies will need rapid revision. "This war has been so over-described that even the soldiers are in danger of not knowing their own experiences, or what they did. They have seen their simple soldierly duty translated into such glowing feats of heroism-yet with clues of recognisability here and there-that swiftly, being humankind with those aspirations to the heroic which distinguish, I think, the best of us, they fail to know the caricature and believe it truth. The honour medals thrust into their sheepish hands become symbols of what they had hoped and prayed and dreamed they might do in moments of stress and danger. In the event tens of thousands have become 'Walter Mittys' in reverse, but somehow without dignity and without awakening sympathy. "The implication of these things is that the morale of the United States forces who took part in this war is based on illusion. Their experiences, dangerous and full of hardship as they often were, could have been of immense value in training and preparing them for the major disaster which hangs over us. Jn the event I believe that these experiences have left them quite unprepared for battle, with its massive air and ground artillery backed by a great weight of infantry, tanks, and most of the weapons they possess themselves." "The United States Far Eastern Air Force has expressed its fears at the profligate use of the air arm as artillery in close support of infantry. Infantry must fight with its own fire power and field artillery. The use of close-support air power from Inchon to Pyongyang could not have been provided on a comparable scale in the earlier fighting in the south. In a major war against an enemy with air power of his own, and properly equipped with a nti-aircraft weapons, it would be unthinkable.

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"But the United States infantry does use its own fire power. It uses it in my experience to an extent never before known in warfare. It uses it largely at random, and at least ten times as much as British troops engaged in similar roles in this war. The weight of it blotted out enemy fire power almost completely, rendering comparison absurd. " ... I believe that better results could have been obtained using one tenth of the ammunition. The advance would have been quicker. The soldiers would have gained experience. Thousands of civilian lives would have been spared." That is one aspect of logistics, and in addition there was no wastage of aircraft or transport due to enemy action. "Clothing is another most important item. The clothing offered is wide in its variety and magnificent in quality. The result is often that the G.I. does not look like a soldier, does not feel like one, and, above all, he does not act like one. Normally, in his drab dungarees when he is slouching unwillingly on his feet, he looks like a convict, or at best a mechanic. So do most of his officers. It is a curious anomaly that with six or seven kinds of trousers, for example, some of them ludicrous in their aspect, with a curious fiat pocket across the rump, and a pocket ballooning on each thigh, he contrives to achieve the nondescript. In preserving his individuality he has lost it. Few can doubt that he would be better clad with less choice, say with one quarter of the clothing handed out with amazing profligacy simply for the asking." I gave instances of the immense variety of foods, and the wastage caused by lack of thought in the packing of much of these goods. The roads of Korea were strewn with small tins of jam, biscuits and packets of sugar and coffee. Believe it or not, there were even tins of water. "Above and beyond all this is the mass of luxuries considered essentials to the man in the war area, and especially to the man in the comfortable base far beyond the reach of war. These include sweet and sickly candies of astonishing variety, chewing gums, salted nuts, Coca-Cola, chocolates and

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chocolate biscuits, and a wide range of toilet and other requisites all packaged as if to catch the eye of a difficult-toplease customer casually shopping at home. "On top of all this is the wealth of petroleum fuels for the ever-growing army of machines, the machines themselves, and the ever-increasing armies of men to carry it all, work it all, service it all, wear it all, eat it all, burn it all, shoot it all off, or throw it away. "All this helps to make the adverse rate of manpower simply colossal. One of the questions which must be answered, if possible, before the event is: Can the United States production machine and transport services allied to an unquestioned genius for logistics, counterbalance Asiatic manpower? And can production and transport on the proportionate scale of the Korean war be maintained in a major war of incomparably greater usage and wastage? Further, ought it to be maintained? For, in my view, American production, running wild and seeking outlets at almost any price, or no price at all, is in danger, not only of recklessly squandering vital raw materials in ever-shortening supply, but of destroying the ability of the American man to fight." Finally, I tried to express some of my other fears arising out of the Korean Rehearsal in a manner which might (but did not) prove acceptable: " ... There is a growing sense that all the effort, all the death and suffering and destruction, may have been in vain.... Already they (the Koreans) have paid a monstrous price for something they do not understand, and it is but an instalment .. . pitiful wretches, men, women and even children, accused of communist sympathies are huddled in stinking cells with the groans of those others being 'interrogated' and the death agonies of the 'unforgiven' in their ears.'" "The political aspects of the war also demand urgent thought and attention. It has become clear that Americans, even on a high level, use the words 'Red' and 'Democrat' in a loose 1 At liberation of Seoul, 29th September, Rhee had promised forgiveness. Many correspondents wrote with horror of the savage events in Seoul at this time.

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way that may render them meaningless. To call all North Koreans. all Chinese. all Russians, 'Reds' is as absurd as to call all eighteenth-century Englishmen 'Aristocrats' and all present-day ones 'Socialists'. To apply these epithets to the politically unaware Korean peasant is dangerous nonsense." " ... we are learning also that it is impossible to liberate a country unless it is able fully to stand on its own feet when the liberation process is complete. The United Nations are in danger of finding themselves forced, in effect. to colonise Korea or to abandon it once more an easy prey to Russians or Chinese. who know precisely what it is they have to sell. and have no qualms about the manner in which they sell it. " " ... it is certain that a country devoid of democracy in its nature cannot suddenly become one. for democracy is the result of political evolution arising out of the people. and from no other source. . . . "I believe that this war has done much to reveal many of the weaknesses in the United Nations. It cannot afford to embark upon adventures of this nature unless its motives (and aims) are crystal clear. and unless all its members are prepared to accept all the results of its actions. "For it is certain. I think. that as soon as the United Nations depart from Korea there will be nothing to deter the communists. inspired and helped by China and Russia. to take over.... " This was the gist of my long message. Bernard sent out a car for me. and my brief idyll was over. I felt and looked ten years younger without my beard on the outside of me, and all this sitting too heavily upon the inside of me. I sat by the open fire in the middle of the kitchen floor of the main building, watching the wood smoke curl upwards to a hole in the roof. and remembering those days. a quarter of a century ago. when I had lived like this with the Indians of the Southern Pampas. seeing again Machila, and the courteous gesture with which he had been wont to cut me a succulent slice from the beef. dripping its fat into the glowing logs; seeing again the long plaits framing the dark face of Nellida. Even the sight

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of an aged Japanese of uncertain sex shovelling rice into a toothless mouth with an almost continuous rhythmic motion of chopsticks, and accompanied by terrific sucking noises, could not remove my mood of nostalgia for the primitive. There was much to be said for the 'Noble Savage'. Bernard's chauffeur aroused me from reverie, back to war and civilisation, and the quixotic struggles of mankind in a quagmire of darkness and delusion, in the vacuum of no faith. The whole family lined up to bid me farewell, and as I looked back their heads remained deeply bowed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FAREWELL TO PEACE

ON 7th November 1950 General MacArthur's headquarters

in Tokyo announced that the Korean war had been "brought to a practical conclusion with the closing of the trap on enemy elements north of Pyongyang and the seizure of the east coastal areas". Indeed, it was only too obvious that the trap had not closed. But the Second Korean war had begun, and, most curiously, it had also ended. Throughout the week from 1st November General MacArthur's headquarters had virtually dried up, and only reports from corps and the Eighth Army in Korea. and the constant stream of correspondents coming and going, revealed that the 'Chinese communist forces', supporting or integrated with the remnants. or the regrouped, North Korean Army, had caught the United Nations off balance and delivered a sudden and terrific punch in the midriff right down the centre line from Kanggye. They had achieved, unbelievable as it seems under continuous and unmolested air reconnaissance, absolute surprise. The 27th Commonwealth Brigade, holding the key town of Pakchon in the north-west, and the difficult right bank of the Chongchon river, which runs north-south before turning west to the sea. had fought their most heroic actions of the war at the point of the bayonet. The South Koreans on their right had caved in, and the Chinese communist forces, or whoever they were (for it was not then clear) had poured down on both banks of the Chongchon, threatening to cut off the 24th Division which had advanced to within ten miles of the Yalu River on the west coast road. All forces in the northwest would have met disaster, but the tiny three-battalionminus-everything 27th Commonwealth Brigade held the vital 208

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Pakchon hinge, and maintained a bridgehead across the Chongchon until all the 24th had rushed back through Sinanju to safety. Thus the first ill-considered dash to the Yalu, unco-ordinated, carelessly planned, if planned at all, had collapsed at a single stroke. But on 7th-8th November, when most of this was already history, General MacArthur's hea.dquarters maintained that their estimate of enemy strength a week earlier had been accurate. Under the strongest pressure from experienced and influential American correspondents, such as Lindsay Parrot of the New York Times and Howard Handleman of l .N.S., it was finally admitted that 'alien' forces had been engaged and that these 'alien' reinforcements had arrived in North Korea from across the Yalu River. In fact the intelligence estimate of 20,000 enemy had been a minimum of 80,000 on the wrong side, and it began to appear that General MacArthur's intelligence advisers knew less about the situation, and were less able to appreciate the enemy strength and probable movement, than almost any trained observer in the whole theatre of war. Meanwhile the whole mountainous central sector of North Korea had become a no-man's-land, down which the enemy could drive a wedge almost at will, to isolate the two independent groups of United Nations forces fighting their uncoordinated campaigns east and west. Edward Almond's 10th Corps on the east had no physical contact, and little liaison of any kind, with Walton Walker's Eighth Army. It was indeed a remarkable state of affairs. But even as we pieced the situation together it began to appear that this was but a lightning stroke, a massive warning punch, to keep clear of the Manchurian frontier and the electrical installations vital to the Chinese. The enemy had broken contact, leaving a disturbing vacuum vomiting its trails of refugees, blindly seeking shelter and food, or the mere maintenance of life. Patrols of the 27th Brigade probing carefully forward found nothing. The South Koreans, skidding to a halt, turned round and began to inch cautiously back. 0

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The truth of the matter was, and is, that this war could not be won on the roads, though it might easily be lost on them. At that time, and probably at almost any time, fast recce groups could reach the Yalu River at half a dozen points, by-passing the contented enemy in the hills, glad to prepare road blocks in depth against their return. And in many rear areas large-scale guerilla activity demanded determined and sustained attention, and began to tie up considerable bodies of United Nations troops. The British 29th Brigade, a most powerful independent brigade group (who have since covered themselves with glory, holding the last bridgeheads, as the 27th did before them), had just arrived in the country to find their journey northward impeded by this necessary work. To add to the difficulties of reporting the war with accuracy, the United States Air Force reports became even more disquieting. From the outset these grandiose statements had been regrettably unreliable and grossly inaccurate. They now became a joke, ridiculed on all sides. For example, and it is a very fair example, G.3 Operational Report, dated 8th November 1950, reads (in part) : (para 8) Air Force. (7 Nov.) b. (2) Fighter and B 26 aircraft inflicted 127 enemy casualties and destroyed and damaged enemy equipment as follows: (There followed a long list of minor equipment with which I will not trouble the reader.) (3) In addition to claims previously reported for 5 and 6 Nov., fighter and B 26 aircraft inflicted 417 enemy casualties. Already many reports had proved on examination more than 90 per cent wrong, even in regard to such large objects as tanks. From this date and henceforth, until overcome by ridicule in early February 1951, pilots gave figures of enemy killed down to digits, and presently General MacArthur's intelligence advisers followed suit, and, not having known enemy strength previously to within one or two hundred thousand, now knew the exact totals down to the last man. They invited such questions as : "Can you tell us how many of the Chinese

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communist forces were A.W.O.L. ' last Tuesday?" and got them, in bitter, frustrated, and anxious humour. The Air Force also reported material damage in the same way, so that it would have been no great surprise for any one of us to read that a pilot attacking a farmyard had wounded five geese, killed a hen, seriously damaging three ploughs (ancient pattern) and one hoe totally destroyed. This was the kind of nonsense headquarters correspondents had to listen to for an hour or more every afternoon, and inevitably leading American correspondents tried to break down this nonsense into sense. In the end General MacArthur's Public Information staff arbitrarily closed down on newspaper briefings and retired from the fray. Perhaps it was for the best. Intensive air attacks were now launched against the Yalu River bridges, but snowstorms already heralded the approach of winter, and the rivers, even the Han at Seoul, would be frozen over in a matter of days, and the enemy would have no further use for bridges until the spring thaw. It was not until 10th November that General MacArthur's intelligence staff began to produce chapter and verse of the strength and situation. An ominous lull covered the whole front from east to west, and the bitter freezing winds from Manchuria were roaring over the hills and valleys. The North Koreans were now 'known' to be strengthened by four Chinese communist armies grouped under command of G.H.Q., North Korean People's Army. Chinese troops (said G.H.Q.) had been massing in the eastern provinces of Manchuria and moving into positions on the Yalu River line since January. They had begun to enter North Korea on 16th October. The estimates of Chinese communist forces, said to be based on interrogations of the large numbers of prisoners in United Nations hands, revealed that three Chinese armies were disposed on the north-western sector against the British pivotal position, and one Chinese army on the north-east. These professional Chinese troops of high calibre (as they were described) crossed the Yalu at many points between Siniaju and Manpojin due north of Kanggye, and, with their short ' Absent without leave.

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lines of communication, the Chinese were able easily to reinforce North Korea at will from the huge reservoir of troops, estimated at fifty divisions organised in field armies, under the Manchurian Area command. G.H.Q. Tokyo had known this all the time, yet General MacArthur had been absolutely certain that the Chinese would not intervene, even if he put his troops on the Yalu. But it must be remembered that terms like 'army', 'corps' and 'division' have become very loosely used, and may convey an inaccurate impression. A Chinese 'army' is barely the equivalent of a small corps formation by British standards. An army consists of two or three divisions, each division approximately ten thousand strong, and without comparable fire power, or supporting services, with a brigade such as the British 29th. Nevertheless these light mobile divisions are able to move at great speed in almost any direction, using pack transport ideally suited to rugged mountainous country. It was still maintained by Tokyo that the initiative remained with United Nations forces, and that the advance was still on. For the first time since the war had begun in June enemy jet fighters, M.l.G. 15s, had appeared in the Yalu area, especially over Siniaju. Flying at immense speeds, often in excess of 600 m.p.h., their momentary meetings with the almost equally fast aircraft of their adversaries seemed innocuous. Whether or not it is possible to fight, or at any rate 'dog fight' on the lines of air battles in the Second World War I don't know. There can only be a bare fragment of a split second to do it in. I believe that it may be worth considering that, although the opinions in this book are my own, they were never formed in isolation. Days and nights were filled with constant argument and debate among us, in the Press Club, in the agency offices, the American Club, the Marunouchi, scores of correspondents, American, British and French, together with military personnel and United Nations observers, hammered out their views and ideas, and inevitably we must have influenced each other. Perhaps it is worth saying that my views, conclusions and appreciations were not considered unusual, or wide of the mark, and were frequently sought, and carefully discussed, by the score or more of American, British and French corres-

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pondents, many of them of world reputation, who were my immediate circle of friends and companions. But it was time to get back to Korea. Roy Macartney was also roaring to go, and because he is Australian and we were all a little jaded by the American reaction to some adversity, which invariably manifests itself in a spate of grandiloquent bombast, and because we had come to dislike C 54s, C 46s and overloaded aircraft of all kinds, we decided to travel Australian. And this was duly arranged. On 13th November, by way of Iwakuni, the Australian base near the great Japanese naval port of Kure, we should go again to war. II

This week of 6th-13th November was the happiest time I knew in Japan. I had filled every available minute, wandering in the Ginza, and learning the ramifications of the various streets, the tempura houses, and cafes. And I had had Japanese week-ends at Atami and Nikko, exploring the coasts and hills, and experiencing brief insights into Japanese life. The whole experience had been, and was to continue, most rich in friendships, and the curious relativity of time had played its part. For many of us seemed to have shared the mutual experience of years rather than days and weeks. But of all those who gave me their unfailing companionship and kindness only those are introduced who, in some way, carry my long story onward. Among the most valuable of my friends, and one with whom I spent much of my time in Japan from the outset, was Gordon Jenkyns, editor of the English language news paper ,Japan News. Gordon had been Public Relations Officer to LieutenantGeneral Sir Horace Robertson-'Red Robbie', as the Australians called him-in the Second World War. General Robertson had become administrative Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth forces in the area, including those United Nations troops, such as the Dutch, using British arms and equipment. His friendship was of great avail to Gordon Jenkyns, for without his support, and through him the support of the Australian Government, the Japan News could not have weathered the varied storms which beset it, and Common-

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wealth troops would have been deprived of their only local news medium. I found Gordon and his newspaper both interesting and inspiring, and it was good at times to be able to be of some help. Both he and the Japan News existed on sufferance, and were suffered none too gladly by G.H.Q. Neither the editor nor his reporters were eligible to attend military conferences, nor had he the privilege of information accorded to English language newspapers under Japanese control and under the direct influence of the Supreme Commander. Frank Owen had first taken me to meet Gordon in his little office above his presses just off an unmade road bordering a drab canal cutting, and within sight of the back of the 'fancy cake' architecture of the glamorous Imperial Hotel. Gordon kept a good file of London papers as up to date as air-mail allowed, and he knew 'everyone'. His rotary presses shook the frail building under him and around him, but nothing shook his faith in his paper and his heart. A dozen Japanese toiled at all the technical crafts of newspaper production, watched over by a small staff of Australian journalists, and by a seeming miracle the castings were on the presses at 6 p.m. each evening and Gordon switched the switch. Of course, it is always a 'seeming miracle' that any newspaper comes out, but from one day to the next it seemed uncertain that Gordon Jenkins would produce Japan News, but he always did. We were a great deal together, sampling the 'tempura' houses, where the prawns and slivers of fish are cooked before the eyes of the customer, the cook often sitting cross-legged with his cooking apparatus on a kind of revolving stage, and turning himself to face his customers arranged round the circumference of the table. He knew many Japanese, and, listening to his talks with possible advertisers and many others, and meeting them in the Tokyo Club and the luxurious little restaurants and drinking places off the Ginza (which reminded me of similar places in Paris and Brussels), a picture of Japan, its industry, its habits, its thinking in regard to the Occupation, began to form in my mind. It was important, too, that Gordon had the entree to the

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Commander-in-Chief, and could and did take me casually to luncheon or tea or drinks, when we could talk freely. I liked Red Robbie on sight. I think he is about the only Briton the old General MacArthur really liked-for Air Vice Marshal Bourchier had not been a success-and this was of great importance to Britain and the Commonwealth. Practically every facility we enjoyed, including the Marunouchi Hotel, and a 'millionaires' country-house paradise at Kawana on the coast beyond Atami, we owed to the Commander-in-Chief's efforts. Sir Alvary Gascoigne, in my opinion, was in an impossible position with poor old MacArthur, and it was really quite ridiculous to be represented in Japan by anyone above the rank of Third Secretary, or alternatively by Lord Louis Mountbatten, and a team of pink elephants. There was no compromise. I was with the Commander-in-Chief when a brown-paper parcel, casually delivered by air freight together with a pair of golf shoes, a present from U.S.A.F. General Stratemeyer, turned out to contain the United Nations flag especially sent out by the Prime Minister of Britain. It was a week overdue, and had been 'mislaid'. Red Robbie, a propos the golf shoes, had won all hearts by the careful but lavish distribution of crates of Australian beer and Gorgonzola cheese. One might say that we owed the Marunouchi Hotel and Kawana, and the occasional use of the word 'Allied' in Japan, mainly to beer and gorgonzola. There were innumerable tricky problems for the general and the most difficult and diplomatic job. Such things as the differences between United States costs and our own had to be settled somehow by him. For example, American hospital treatment costs just over $10 a day against our costs of under 12s. 6d. (say $1.75) a day. To have any of our wounded 'hospitalised' (as they called it!) by the Americans was therefore a most costly business, and the general had to contrive to 'hospitalise' Americans whenever possible and arrange a cancelling-out system. One more Briton in an American hospital than American in a British hospital could cause a minor crisis! In early November the war news had put an end to the general's hopes of leave. Brigadier Park had just arrived from

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New Zealand as the forerunner of the N.Z. Field Regiment of ArtiIIery which was on the way to Korea. The Americans were trying to manreuvre the South Africans away from British control, and Red Robbie was meeting that threat and gradually welding the whole administrative side of the British and Commonwealth forces into a coherent whole. The entree to the general was only one of the many facilities Gordon Jenkyns afforded to me. Above all, we became firm friends, finding a wealth of similar interests and mutual relaxation in each other's company. In mid-week I gave a farewell dinner party to Louis Heren, whose departure, despite the prophets of doom, who reminded him hourly that 'of course he wouldn't go the way things were', was arranged for the week-end. I had a private room at the Marunouchi and a dozen guests. It was a successful evening, for the Marunouchi do this kind of thing very well, including the prettiest kimonoed girlsans, good flowers, and plenty of Krug, very dry, and a reasonable vintage. It really was a delight to find a good champagne in this outpost, for I inherited a taste for champagne (on my mother's side), and a pint of Krug in a tankard at 10.30 a.m. is, I believe, a very fine thing indeed. It was a gay little party: George Foister, with his eversmiling choirboy face; Duncan Hooper, Reuter Far Eastern Chief over from Melbourne on a visit, and a good friend; dear old Ward Price, the warhorse of warhorses; Jimmy Hays, whom we called 'The General'; Dick Hughes, who I saw once pray for a drink and receive two bottles of Coca-Cola almost by a miracle, but whether from heaven or hell depends on your taste; Lionel Crane, my companion of Seoul city and other hot spots, too; Steve Barber, companion of the 'ditches'; Gordon Jenkyns; and the great 'voice of humanity', Freddie Sparks, whose face I never saw, nor ever shall see, without a kind of delight suffusing me. And, of course, Louis. Tokyo life had become a round of parties, and many of them of importance, for at some of these parties, cocktails from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. (and special pals stay on), one could talk freely with the 'embassy crowd', of whom Vere Redman and his wife were old 'Japan hands', and very knowledgeable, and there were many other personages, official and semi-official,

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well worth talking to. It was in this week that I first met the lively and violent little Australian, Hodgson, the Allied representative on the Control Council, and with full ambassadorial rank. He had a leg in plaster after an accident, and this, chaining him to a chair and to hobble about with two sticks, did not in any wise chain his fiery spirit or keep him away from the social round and his keen enjoyment of people. Also it added to his violence. He is a lovable man, and a good servant of Empire to rival Red Robbie. He reminded at once of the old firebrand, Willy Hughes, whose eruptions had made him the pride of Australia in the 1920s, and had percolated through to the wider world. I liked Hodgson, and I hope he liked me. We argued and rowed like cats. One night he called Britain 'a pimple', simply, I suppose, to set me off, and he did. I wanted Britain and the Commonwealth to lead (an9 I still do), and I saw no other hope that might save what is left of civilisation (and I still don't). We roared at each other: not that he produced an alternative to Britain; but 'pimple'-pimple ! By heaven, and what a pimple!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHINESE PUZZLE

I LEFT Tokyo by train with Roy Macartney on 13th November for Iwakuni to pick up the Australian courier plane for North Korea. The war situation was being referred to on all sides as 'The Chinese Puzzle', and although I was unable to solve it I was determined to be present when and if it was solved. United Nations forces all along the line were probing cautiously forward into a strange emptiness, meeting nothing stronger than isolated enemy elements which did not seem to fit into a pattern either of defence or attack. The enemy army, which had launched its attack with such speed and skill, striking at the soft centre and forcing the withdrawal of the long arms of the 'wings', had disappeared completely. Meanwhile the feared winter freeze-up was beginning, and there were still large numbers of men, including the British, ill-equipped with winter clothing to meet it. But whatever the enemy intention might be, it was becoming obvious that the over-optimism following the fall of Pyongyang had resulted in a dangerous gap in the supply pipeline from the United States, and a feverish effort was being made to build up ammunition, food and clothing above the danger point. The eighteen-to-twenty-hour train journey from Tokyo to Iwakuni on a sheltered reach of the Inland Sea can be pleasant or horrible according to the luck of the train. This time it was pleasant. We had a good sleeper compartment, convertible by day, and we could watch in comfort as the Inland Sea unrolled beyond the windows. This island-sheltered waterway provided Japan not only with magnificent naval bases but also with a wonderful playground for sailing and fishing and swimming from the sands of some of the most alluring islands the world affords. An Australian C.S.M. met us at the naval base 218

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of Kure with Australian quilted sleeping-bags according to plan, and we began to congratulate ourselves on our comfortable choice of routes. But not for long. We arrived at Iwakuni to find that General Robertson had decided to visit the Commonwealth Brigade at a moment's notice and had taken the courier. There would not be another for two days, and there was nothing for it but to hitch-hike as best we could in the morning. The galling thing was that had we known about the general's flight he would have taken us with pleasure. As it was, we trudged the bleak windswept expanse of Iwakuni in late afternoon with a foretaste of the icy winds and weather to come. It is one of the facts of war that the men in need doing the fighting have the worst of everything in every possible way, and those at the back have the best of everything. It would have been impossible to find anyone in Japan without every kind of furred and hooded garment against the weather, whereas the nien in the forward foxholes still had cotton underwear and battle-dress. There was absolutely nothing to do, and we killed the time exploring the little town for an hour or two until we might try our luck at drinking time in the Australian mess. It turned out to be a happy evening. We were the guests of Squadron Leader Proctor, a forty-year-old veteran of Biggin Hill and the Western Desert, commanding a squadron of Sunderlands on long reconnaissance flights up the east coast of Korea. From 6,000 or 8,000 feet, he told us, he looked down two or three nights a week on the lights of Vladivistock, and kept his fingers crossed, feeling helpless in the big flying-boat if the Russians should suddenly take a dislike to this patrol activity. It was wearying and bitterly cold work, but the Sunderlands were valuable in spotting a lot of mines, charting them, and being really helpful to shipping. In the morning we hung about on the airstrip until a C 46 came in from Tokyo, and Homer Bigart of the New York Times and the vast bearlike shape of Lee Ferrero tottered out almost into our arms. Half an hour later we were all away to Ashiya and the inevitable box car. It was a ghastly day of freezing wind and chaotic lack of organisation. Masses of aircraft were flying in and out of Ashiya, but no one seemed to

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know anything about when and where they were going. Homer and Lee went straight off to sleep in the overheated P.I.O. office with the almost red-hot radiators, but Roy and I were determined to get off, and humped our bags round the immense field from box car to box car. It was dusk when we got off, and I think it was a miracle. A young pilot came in from Pyongyang with a propeller boss missing and minor trouble. To his astonishment and to ours he was at once cursed volubly and ordered to load up and get away again. He had left Ashiya at three in the morning and taken cargoes to Kimpo and Pyongyang, and was already dog tired, but he took his orders philosophically with a shrug of his heavy shoulders. Mechanics got busy on the propeller while a gang began to load a cargo of bombs, watched dismally by Roy and myself. Finally the lethal mass was tied and roped to fill almost the whole cavernous body of the aircraft, and we climbed in up as far forward as we could get on a pile of kit-bags. The immense effort of cargo command to build up supplies was obvious at Ashiya. There were literally hundreds of the huge box cars. Our young pilot, whose name was Thompson, was a big fair youth with a burden of flesh building up over his frame. He was cheerful and friendly despite his weariness, and was without a trace of resentment at the quite unjustified (as it seemed) treatment he had received. He had been due for home leave, he told us, a week earlier, but all home leave had been cancelled, and since then he and all the other cargo pilots had been flying almost round the clock, snatching an hour or two of sleep, whenever and wherever they could. The box cars were feeling it, too, he said, and were badly in need of general overhaul. Most of them had done twice the work they were meant to do, and there was scarcely an aircraft on the field which would have been allowed to take-off in the United States. Our aircraft was almost not permitted to take off by an even greater power. Roy and I huddled up forward in the darkness and hoped for the best. I think it was the most horrible take-off either of us had ever had, and had there been so much as a fivebarred gate at the end of the runway we should have taken it

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with us. There was that terrific vibration of the great twin fuselages of the tail as the pilot revved the engines to a peak for the jump and let go the brakes. We didn't really take off at all. The heavy plane simply left the runway a few feet above the sea and stayed there. She felt like lead. It must have been five minutes before we began to inch almost imperceptibly upwards, slowly to gain height as the petrol load lightened. Two hours later, at 8,000 feet, above the mountains of Korea, or rather very few feet above the mountains of Korea, Thompson stuck his cheerful fair moon of a face round the cabin door to tell us that we were icing up quite heavily and having a job to maintain height. It was after ten when we touched down at Pyongyang and shook hands thankfully with my namesake. "It was a good idea of mine to fly the safe way this time, don't you think?" drawled Roy. It docs seem curious that a certain pattern of events seems inescapable at times. Pyongyang had become an airport comparable with Kimpo in the last two or three weeks, and the crates of supplies were piled high round the field, loading into a constant stream of trucks leaving for the north as fast as they could go. We hopped a jeep to a P.I.0. camp on the edge of the town to find Gordon Walker, Bernie Kaplan and half a dozen others to greet us. But we could not stay. The heat in the small room was terrific and much more than Roy or I could stand. Somewhere in the town we knew that an Australian Public Relations camp was established, and Gordon Walker, who had sampled its miseries, jeeped us to it with some misgiving. "If you must find out for yourselves, you must," said Gordon. "But I promise you it's terrible." And he was right. Perhaps it is in the nature of things that a soldier dislikes the business of housekeeping, and it is too much to expect Public Relations to function. Certainly I have met few Public Relations officers who did not harbour some resentment at their lot. On the first floor of a battered house fully exposed on a hill we found four Australian journalists wedged into their sleeping bags, fully dressed and with scarves almost up to their eyes. A bottle of Scotch was going the rounds by candle-light. It was

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a depressing scene. All the windows were out, and there wasn't a stove in the place outside the cookhouse, and that was long since dead. We crawled into our bags, produced our own bottle of Scotch and made the best of it. It seemed that there was no compromise in Korea. Either the places were completely sealed with petrol furnaces going full blast, or they were open and no stoves at all. Furthermore, the two-seater had been horribly and stupidly sited on the very edge of an escarpment overlooking a huddle of roofs and in full view of a sniper. There are few things more irritating than to be sniped at on a bitterly cold two-seater in such a position. We were glad to bribe our way onward with our last bottle of Scotch. We had intended to give it to deserving characters forward, but there was no other hope, and we let it go. It was a bitterly cold morning, but the sun held a surprising warmth as soon as it was decently up. The perishing wind from the north had abated, and we made a good pace northward over a road already crumbling badly at the shoulders from the heavy traffic and tanks which it had borne forwards and backwards and was now bearing forward again. Once more the yellow dust hung like a pall to blanket the land. It was mid-afternoon when we reached Sinanju on the Chongchon and found 1st Corps headquarters under canvas well sited in the hollow of a hill just off the road. There was a tent and camp beds for a score of men, and something like a welcome. Apart from half a dozen agency men the whole region was barren of correspondents. There wasn't a story-but there wasn't a story anywhere. But if this build-up which we had glimpsed meant anything, there very soon would be. The remarkable Bennyhoff, his dark brooding face crowned with an enormous hat of brown fur, twiddled the knob of his radio, tapped his typewriter with one hand and roared down the telephone at the same time, demanding the impossible, and sometimes getting it. There was a time when he roared: "Get me Washington! " from a tent and got it. There was another time when he more or less captured a teletype of his own, crawled out into a field and hitched it up, and scooped the agencies for the best part of a week. At first, I couldn't bear the sight of Bennyhoff; but I grew to like him. His whole

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energy was expended, and his life risked at times, for ridiculous trifles which he imagined were important. If there is an American Madame Tussaud's Bennyhoff should be in it as the 'Communications man of this generation'. He was entirely without consideration, or the smallest conception of anyone's comfort. He had been brought up in that kind of world. But his heart was pure gold, and he was brave. On the night of our arrival he was marshalling the communications resources of an army to send a piece about the 'sixseater' at 1st Corps. It was a good piece. In fact, in a small way, it deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as 'The Specialist'. 1st Corps had the best six-seater, a back-toback, in North Korea. They had taken a lot of trouble with it. It was well sited and with a good stove, stoked constantly by two Korean boys. I don't think anyone was constipated at 1st Corps, and staff colonels were so happy that they were inclined to 'let their hair down' once in a while as well as their trousers, and expand a bit about the general trend of events. There was an intensive economy campaign which was a complete failure. The corps commander, the forthright and gentle little General Milburn, said: "Waal, I guess you cain't get Americans to save." I had the impression that he wasn't very happy about whatever was toward, but he wouldn't talk except to say: "Don't worry. You've come to the right place. Just stick around." General Van Brundt,1 the chief of staff, was one of the most charming and intelligent men I met on the whole campaign, and his tent was invariably open for a chat and a drink. We felt assured that we couldn't be anywhere better, and meanwhile we were within easy reach of the most forward positions and had time to get the lay of the turbulent sea of freezing hills which thrust their icy ridges and pinnacles to the skies in uncharted confusion. Hitch-hiking across the frozen Chongchon on the late afternoon of the 16th we caught up with the 27th Commonwealth Brigade as they went back, unopposed, into Pakchon, and ' I am not certain of the spelling. If it is wrong and by chance the general should see it, I ask his pardon.

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established their headquarters exactly as before. It was good to be with them again. The general's visit had produced immediate results, and loads of heavy sweaters began to arrive. Everywhere the men of the Argylls, Middlesex and the Australians were digging themselves into deep troughs and making nests of rice straw. The morale was terrific. They had held the Chinese and would hold them again. They had proved themselves and were seasoned veterans. The brigadier looked bronzed and happy as he made his constant rounds of the battalions. He had reason to be proud. The understrength little Cinderella brigade had become almost a legend, and here it was, after ninety days in the line, and on the verge of its first rest. Within two days the brigade was going into corps reserve, but first they were determined to consolidate their position and make a first-class hand-over. Neither the brigadier nor any of the officers could understand why the Chinese had not used artillery, and they were inclined to feel that it must have been a hurried token attack. The Chinese Puzzle seemed even more of a puzzle up forward than it had appeared in Tokyo. The attack had not been as heavy as had been described, but it had gingered up all troops. The improvement was noticeable everywhere. Even Americans were deploying a few hundred yards off the roads and siting their camps with much greater care and skill. But the problems of winter had overtaken the army. There had been 20-25 degrees of frost each night, and the brigade had had thirteen cracked cylinder blocks, still further to impoverish their slender transport. From that night all vehicles were started up hourly throughout the night. The clothing position was also far from solved. The American rubber 'shoepaks', a heavy type of overshoe, were forbidden by the brigadier. Men could not possibly march in them, and in the end 'ammunition' boots turned out to be best. The whole brigade was on the alert, determined that they would not be caught napping with their boots off. I think that the Australians were suffering most. In a way they were the toughest and the most experienced soldiers, but many of them were over thirty-five years of age, and some, having cheated on their age, were over forty. The cold was

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beginning to find them out, and the doctors were working hard, examining men doubled up with lumbago and kidney trouble. But the men were remarkably cheerful and making themselves snug in the rice straw. For a week Roy and I made a reconnaissance of the northwestern front. There was no further forward movement beyond very active patrolling, but there was a feeling of tension in all ranks, of something big about to happen. "Is it the Third World War?" was the most constant question. But everyone wanted to have done with it as quickly as possible and be off home. It is magnificent country, with its sharp ridges and deep valleys, and, despite the 'dragon' feel of some of the deserted lateral roads in the no-man's-land between Yongbyon and Pakchon, we were able to enjoy much of it, especially where the walls of ancient towns threaded the hills marking the boundaries of the invaders in ancient times. There were eerie half-hours when we had little idea where we were, and furhatted, quilted troops loomed ahead, always (fortunately) turning out to be South Koreans. It was good to find the Cavalry Division in a freezing hollow near Kunu-ri, and to meet my old friends, General Gay and Colonel Holmes. I had said goodbye to them as they had left for Chinnampo to embark for home. Now home seemed a long way ahead. We crossed the Chongchon and jeeped up through the passes to find Billie Harris with his Garry Owens as sprightly as ever. They were encamped in the midst of the tragic ruin of Y ongbyon, and the sight of the ancient place held us entranced as we saw it from the crest of a hill. A Patton tank filled up the great stone southern gate of the walled city, which lies in a shallow bowl completely encircled by hills. The other main gateway was almost the only structure still standing except for a church and a monastery building on the high ground north. Here the Garry Owens had their headquarters. We were given a warm welcome, and all along the road G.l.s waved and called "Hi-ya, Tom. Where's the beard?" p

226 THE ROAD TO RUIN It was good to be remembered by these men with whom I had shared many ditches. The Garry Owens were on their toes, patrolling actively up to five thousand yards north of the town, and with all kinds of schemes to surround blocks of enemy. They were a keen lot. After studying their maps, we risked the lateral road out of Y ongbyon to Pakchon. It was no-man's-land, but it saved a full thirty miles. Patton tanks with their tracks blown off by mines stood by the roadsides, and we were glad suddenly to see a bunch of the Middlesex playing 'cricket' on a fiat strip of road, while another bunch kicked a football furiously on a school playground. Pakchon itself was a ruin, and it was almost impossible to find a roof. The brigade had not paused for a moment, and were busy consolidating their old and difficult positions in the wild country of the complex river system. The Australians and Argylls were patrolling with strong columns in company strength, supported by tanks, to a depth of ten miles. A deserted village on one day would bristle with enemy and ambush on the next, and there were some sharp skirmishes. The enemy seemed to move about through all the area in a very fluid way, and it was difficult to discover a design in it. The brigade were now getting enthusiastic support from the Americans, and much too much of it. The brigadier had 'grounded' all his transport in response to the urgent economy appeal, and now when he asked for two tanks he got twenty. The trouble was that two would have been better for the job. It was the same with artillery support, and the gunnery standards were very low, except in rare instances when a battery would be first-class. The brigadier said: "They must be the most improvident race on earth; but the chaps they lend us are wonderfully loyal." Indeed many of the drivers refused to leave the brigade, and had stuck with it for weeks. On the 17th the weather broke, and a deluge of torrential rain poured down for twelve hours, saturating the men in the forward positions and turning the iron-hard earth to a morass. The Chongchon thawed, and the men cursed. It was worse than the cold, and the discomfort when it refroze the following

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night was frightful until the sun came up in its wonderful winter strength on the 19th and gave the men a chance to dry out. It was a Sunday, and there were clothes steaming on every bush and tree up forward. The padres were happy, for it was one of the very few Sundays of quiet, and there were services everywhere, the Argylls raising their voices in the hymns to resound in the hills. I think that this spot just north of Pakchon was the most magnificent stretch of mountain country in all Korea. I spent several days with battalion medical officers in these days, and it was pitiful to see the men coming in screwed up with backache pains. But there was nothing wrong with their hearts, and by 22nd November the brigade considered that it was master of the territory up to ten miles ahead and could hand over in good conscience. But they never did. It was certain now that a United Nations offensive was imminent. The refugee movement had become rather ominous, for these tragic people, over whose poor lands the terrible tide of battle ebbed and flowed, seemed to have a kind of instinct, a bush telegraph which worked a good deal better than army intelligence. The Australians particularly had come upon many atrocities on their deep patrols, men and women, with their hands wired together, and shot, and the trend was southward into the United Nations lines. All through the days these pitiful wretches trudged wearily through the dust clouds, or the mud, dragging on their backs or in handcarts their diminishing possessions. Many clung to the broken rail tracks and the banks of the frozen rivers to keep away from the worst of the dust and the dangers of the wildly driven vehicles. The whole area had suffered most shockingly. Every town and village was a ruin, or a near ruin, and neither Kunu-ri, nor Sinanju, Yongbyon or Pakchon, were places of human habitation. Here and there groups of refugees worked to pile the rice straw into huge rounded hives to gain protection through the bitter nights, and it was astonishing to find children with smaller children on their backs still ready to respond with a smile to greetings and sweets. But from the men and women there were no signs. The greetings were over. There were only

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the downcast heads of a desolate people praying for a chance to live-or even to die. Yet here and there some people must have clung to their battered villages. Every morning a group of old women washed their clothing in the Chongchon, impervious to the constant thunder of artillery and the flights of B 29s, like transparent silver crosses in the calm blue sky. And there were still a few young men wearing armbands to show their United Nations sympathies and doing minor duties. At this time, too, the Chinese began to send groups of American prisoners back into the 1st Cavalry lines, and Bennyhoff, with his unerring nose for news, had been with the Garry Owens when the first batch had walked in. These men had strange stories to tell. They had been well fed, and lectured most skilfully by pretty Chinese women. Finally, primed with Chinese peace propaganda, they had been sent in trucks to within 2,000 or 3,000 yards of the forward positions and given precise instructions how to regain their units. Within two hours of the first arrivals censorship clamped down, and the returned prisoners were taken to hospital under heavy guard. All contact with them and all mention of the circumstances was forbidden. There was a terrific row, for such a story could not be killed once men like Bennyhoff and Roy Macartney were on the job, and, despite all the resources 1st Corps could bring against them, denying them telephone links, teletype, or any other service, they got the story home. They had to do this because the story was almost certain to be released in Tokyosince there was no real censorship-and if the men on the spot didn't know about it their offices would have thought them crazy. Censorship only works when it is properly applied. I had taken the opportunity of the lull to write the full story of the 27th Brigade, and it was well I did, for twenty-four hours later it would not have been written, nor would there have been space for it. The death of Colonel Green, the Australian battalion commander, hit by a mortar shell as he had lain down to rest, aroused widespread sympathy. I ran into Ron Monson of the Sydney Morning Herald. I hadn't seen him since we met on the road to Nijmegen when the Germans

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cut the road behind us and we spent the night in a barn. Ron had been with the colonel when it happened. There had been a score of men standing round, and the colonel's batman was standing up in the tent while the colonel lay down, yet the colonel was the only man hit. General Gay said with real emotion: "Colonel Green was the finest battalion commander I ever saw." And General Milburn was deeply sincere in his praise and genuine affection for the colonel and the little 'Cinderella' brigade. Their record from the hill on the Naktong River in September when a company of the Argylls had won their spurs of battle, and on through Sariwon to their calm holding of the Pakchon hinge, had earned them the respect of the whole Eighth Army. The magnificently equipped and powerful 29th Brigade, moving slowly forward at this time, had been set a high target of courage and discipline, and none could know then how gloriously they were to take up the baton and add to the lustre of British arms. Colonel Stevens, commanding one of the finest regiments in the United States Army, and one of the best regimental commanders in any army, stopped his jeep by the roadside to watch the R.S.M. of the Argylls put the battalion through their paces. "I'm not an easy man to push around," said the colonel, "but that R.S.M. would make a soldier out of me if I wasn't one already." The colonel turned to his sergeant driver slumped in the seat beside him, chewing. "Take a good look at that," he barked. "That's how soldiers are made, feller. There's no other way, believe it or not." "Aw, muck!" said the sergeant, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, mumbling that he wouldn't let himself be kicked around. "Wouldn't you, by God," said the colonel; "then you'll be kicked around by the enemy." I saw General Milburn with General Van Brundt on the night of the 22nd, the eve of Thanksgiving Day, and also the eve of the offensive, though there was no official news. Again I had the impression that Milburn was not happy about it. The supply situation was still far from satisfactory, and had been

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held up by the thousands of turkeys, pots of cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies, and the thousand and one 'essentials' for the feast, which were being rushed to every unit over the whole front. Ammunition was still short on the American scale, though I believe that there was plenty of ammunition for more normal usage. But the real worry, I think, in the minds of the corps commander and his chief of staff, was that they were uncertain of 'the Object': of what it was they were meant to accomplish. Also they were unhappy about their right flank. The South Koreans once more filling the whole centre were unreliable, and no one could doubt that they would quite naturally run if the Chinese attacked. General Walton-Walker had stated that they were 'unpredictable', but we thought that we could predict them only too well. It was clear, in fact, to many observers, including American commanders, that the natural abilities of the South Koreans as fighters had been sapped by American training, equipment and rations. Frankly, they were spoiled, ready to grumble if all kinds of luxuries, of which they had not heard a few months earlier, were not immediately available. It had to be admitted that the Russians had made a much better job of training and equipping the North Korean army, using their natural abilities and developing them. Man to man the South Koreans are doubtless as brave as the North Koreans, just as the Americans themselves on a man-to-man basis are as brave as anyone else. At any rate the South Koreans made a nasty soft spot in the vulnerable centre covering the Kanggye-Suichon axis down which the last Chinese attack had thrust, to send them in headlong flight and force the whole front to fold back. But on the right things had improved. The marines were on the southern tip of the Chosin Reservoir and in possession of the town of Hakalwoo-ri. On paper there was a light contact all the way across the long mountainous front, but in fact the gaps were enormous, and it should not have baffled the enemy to infiltrate in depth to almost any extent and produce themselves even in the region of Seoul, if they had wished. On this eve of Thanksgiving, while all available transport rushed turkeys to forward positions, the first moves of the

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offensive had begun, and troops were coming up into positions to pass through. Throughout the 23rd I travelled the whole north-western front. It was a remarkable sight. Men awakened from their foxholes to wish each other a Happy Thanksgiving, cooks displayed vast turkeys, tables were laid with white cloths and decorated with candles and flowers in the midst of the charred ruins of burned-out villages. Regimental headquarters were busy printing elaborate menus, each vying with the other to make their Thanksgiving Day an outstanding event. Out of Y ongbyon thousands of troops lined the roadsides with mess tins and tin trays piled high with shrimp cocktails, turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and mince tart, while the slow processions of the stricken refugees toiled painfully in the sombre shadow of the hills. Regimental commanders rushed round in their jeeps determined to eat at all their messes on this day, and one colonel told me towards evening that he had eaten portions of twenty-six dinners. In mid-afternoon I found the Turkish Brigade bivouacked under the foothills on the left bank of the Chongchon, and swung my jeep into their midst to meet a warm welcome. These men had fought their way up, sweeping groups of enemy guerillas from their path with tremendous elan. "We were promised ten thousand guerillas," said a battalion commander, "but we saw only groups of three hundred. They hadn't a chance." They were a tough-looking group of soldiers, and their general came out of his tent with both hands outstretched to welcome me. "My old greatly respected enemy! " he said. He spoke in French, and recalled his war experiences as a young officer in Mesopotamia when he had captured General Townshend at Kut-el-Amara. His name was Brigadier General Tahsin Y azici, and he made me feel that I was among real friends. His men, be said, didn't mind the weather. They were tough troops accustomed to mountainous bleak terrain and longing to get at the enemy. With four full-strength battalions enlisted from a cross-cut of the whole Turkish army, and with an artillery battalion and an engineer company, the Turks were five thousand strong and worth at least double their numbers.

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It was already dusk when I reached the 27th Brigade and found them in the midst of a simple little ceremony. The Americans had made sure that they would have their turkeys and all the trimmings. South Korean troops had been going through them all day, and taking over positions cleared by the British and making the troops shudder. The brigade felt that they could relax. It was already a hard rumour that they would not go into corps reserve, but it was also certain that they would not be implicated in the early stages of whatever was going on. The brigadier was as much in the dark as we were. A small courtyard had been cleaned, and a long table spread with clean linen in an outhouse with a roof. The table was lit with candles, and here sat the score or so of American drivers who had stuck to the brigade through thick and thin, and were now waited upon by the British. The cooks had done a fine job, and it was as good a 'Christmas dinner' as I've ever seen. At first the American boys were rather embarrassed, but presently they thawed out, and it was a good party. It was also the end of 'peace'.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ADVANCE IN LINE ABREAST

GRADUALLY the camp at 1st Corps had begun to fill up, and each night when I got in from twelve to fourteen hours of jeeping and began to thaw out at one of the stoves there was a new hand to offer the Bourbon bottle, and a new voice to say: "Hi, Tom!" Then, as soon as my fingers had thawed a bit there was the story to tap out in the gloom of the tent, and a stumbling walk in the darkness over to signals to see how the stuff was going out, if it was going out, and it usually was. In the deep recesses of the tent the rich fruity Irish voice of Jim Pringle singing 'When Irish Eyes are Smiling' rose above the clack of typewriters, Bennyhoff's roars down the telephone, and the portable radio. We were wedged into the tent with scarcely room to move, but it was fairly warm if the stoves could be kept going all night. Homer Bigart came in with Dwight Martin on the night of the 23rd and we clasped each other by the forearms, as the Romans used to do, with a real warmth of comradeship. We had grown so enormous in our heavy clothing, hoods, fur boots and over-gloves that it was difficult to sort out such small details of our bodies as hands. It was easier, and somehow more natural, to embrace as though we were bears. Bennyhoff was no longer lord of all he surveyed in the agency world, for the huge bearlike body of Ferrero, mountainous in his winter wrappings, had arrived, and three or four more of the high-calibre agency men. Roy had gone back to Tokyo, and I think I was the only 'Briton' in the tent most of the time. But I was happy with Americans now, and more 233

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than half of these were my warm and intimate friends. I was critical of their army, and so were they, and my horror of MacArthur was not greater than theirs. No man of any race reported the war with greater integrity and an absolute faithfulness of description than did Homer Bigart, and I had come to feel a glow of pleasure at the sight of his round, innocentlooking face, with the blue eyes looking mildly but firmly straight at you, while his soft voice stammered a piece of delayed-action wit. Homer seldom said anything one expected him to say, and once he had begun to say something he would say it if the heavens fell. In all the tense hours of acute discomfort Homer and I worked together his sense of humour and his good temper never faltered. At the worst moments his stammer, sometimes warning of a mortar bomb, and always too late, kept us happy. "Mmm-m-m-m-i-nd ... " Homer would begin, as the swish of the approaching bomb gave warning, and the crash. " . . . out! " finished Horner. He would always finish even when the bomb or whatever it was had finished first. On the eve of the 23rd I had already spent nine days and nights with my clothes on, and was beginning to feel really comfortable. Through this period I had learned intimately the forward positions along the fifty miles of the northwest front, and the order of battle was clear on the map inside my head. For their parts Homer and Dwight knew all the regimental commanders and generals as old friends, and Homer's prestige with the Americans was very great. He had, I think, been named as Defence Minister at one stage. Dwight had the Life and Time jeep, and we three joined up as a team, promising Ferrero a lift now and then. We sat up late that night with General Van Brundt and ate in the general's mess, trying to get the lowdown. None of us liked the feel of it. There was a kind of timidity, instead of exhilaration. Was it or was it not an attempt to reach the Yalu and finish the war? If so, it was a bold plan to the point of madness, and repeating the exact pattern of late October and inviting disaster.

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"There won't be any more spearheading," said Van Brundt. "That's sure." On the morning of 24th November General MacArthur arrived and the attack was on. It was a brilliant morning, clear blue cloudless sky and a wind with an edge of ice blowing out of Manchuria. The leading regiment of the 24th Division under Colonel Stevens was already moving on the Chonju road westward. The South Koreans, ready to shoot at shadows, had passed through to Taechon at the limit of the 27th Brigade patrolling. Slight enemy resistance was meeting the 25th Division in the centre (of this north-western salient), and the 2nd Division on the right were advancing somewhat cautiously on both banks of the Chongchon, with a wary, worried eye over their right shoulder at the main force of the South Koreans advancing northward from Tokchon. That was the position at mid-morning when we all went down to Sinanju airstrip to· watch the Supreme Commander's Constellation come in. Walton-Walker, looking like the Michelin tyre advertisement in his bulky clothing, stepped up for an embrace as MacArthur came down the gangway followed by his entourage of agency correspondents. The cavalcade of jeeps moved off swiftly to 1st Corps. MacArthur made a round of the divisions that day, and was almost done for by the cold and just able to totter up the gangway for the journey home. The die was cast. "Home for Christmas!" he had said, and then to General Church of the 24th: "Don't make me a liar, feller ! " There was a pathos in MacArthur that day, for I believe that he knew almost less about the situation than anyone. He had lived for so long in a dream world, isolated and insulated against the facts and general opinions by his clique of sycophants. With his phrase "Home for Christmas" he had not only aroused impossible hopes in the hearts of the Americans, but had in the same breath scared the South Koreans out of their wits. For it meant-if it meant anything- that they would be left alone in North Korea in a month. They had become predictable now, even, one supposes, to General Walton-Walker. Here is the full text of the message General MacArthur left in our hands that day:

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Communique No. 12

24 November 1950

The United Nations massive compression envelopment in North Korea against the new Red Armies operating there is now approaching its decisive effort. The isolating component of the pincer, our air forces of all types, have for the past three weeks, in a sustained attack of model co-ordination and effectiveness, successfully interdicted enemy lines of support from the North so that further reinforcement therefrom has been sharply curtailed and essential supplies markedly limited. The eastern sector of the pincer, with noteworthy and effective naval support, has steadily advanced in a brilliant tactical movement and has now reached a commanding enveloping position, cutting in two the northern reaches of the enemy's geographical potential. This morning the western sector of the pincer moves forward in general assault in an effort to complete the compression and close the vice. If successful this should for all practical purposes end the war, restore peace and unity to Korea, enable the prompt withdrawal of United Nations military forces, and permit the complete assumption by the Korean people and nation of full sovereignty and international equality. It is that for which we fight. (Sgd.) DOUGLAS MAcARTHUR General of the Army, United States Army. Commander-in-Chief. This document filled us with alarm and despondency. Seldom in the history of warfare can any appreciation of a situation have been more wrong. And to imagine, if all this military nonsense were by some miracle true, that the political result would follow, revealed an unawareness that was in its way as unique as this strange man himself.

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II

Dwight had been ordered suddenly to return at once to Tokyo, and he left the jeep with Homer and me. He had undertaken to collect Tom Lambert at 9th Corps near Kunu-ri within twenty-four hours and to make Tom of the party. This we promised to fulfil. It was good, for once in a while, to be master of one's own transport, and I drove off with Homer early in the afternoon of the 24th to catch up with Colonel Stevens. It was a long drive, for the wide Taeryong River crossing point near Pakchon was about thirty miles, and Colonel Stevens had made good progress. We checked in at his regimental headquarters within a few hundred yards of the river and found that the colonel had gone ahead, and that the leading troops were already through Napch'ongjong half-way to Chongju, where ;the left flank intended to anchor. A small group of enemy bad opened fire, but had disappeared almost at once into the hills. It was a wonderful drive with just that tonic hint of danger to keen the senses, and I roared the jeep over the almost empty road in the wake of the leading battalion. The blue smoke of many fires rose from the burnished bronze scrub of the hills, and as we reached the crest out of the Taeryong Valley the sun glowed upon the distant waters of the Yellow Sea like molten gold. It was bitterly cold, but marvellously brilliant, and the cold air was heady with the sweet astringent odour of the burning pines. Here and there we came up with troops digging themselves in off the roads for the night and making nests out of the sheaves of rice straw. And at last we rounded a bend to find a tank on the crest of the hill, and there were the dykes covering Chongju, and there also was Colonel Stevens. "This is as far as we go or need to go tonight," he said. And the ruins of Chongju lay quiet, deserted, in the valley. We had heard scarcely a shot all day, and there had been few shots to hear. But the colonel, pleased as he was with an easy day of progress, was far from sanguine. "We'll go in at dawn," he said dryly. "I don't suppose anyone's there. Whatever they're going to do I doubt whether they'll do much

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about this road. Not hereabouts, anyway. Here we stick until we see which way the wind blows." It had been a long and dangerous hike back almost from the border over this west coast road, to which Chongju was the gateway, and Colonel Stevens was not going up that road again until he felt reasonably sure he could stay there. It was all too fresh in memory. "There was nothing much coming along, but there could be whole regiments in the hills waiting to cut the L of C," said the colonel. He realised well enough that the enemy might be watching us now from the burning ridges which glowed with red gold flame in the dying sun. We all remembered, too, that the Japanese throughout all their long occupation had never ceased to fight guerilla actions in the hills of North Korea. So much for home by Christmas! We trailed the colonel's jeep back to his headquarters and sat with him for an hour in his tent over a bottle of Scotch, getting warmed right through before taking on the last lap of forty or fifty miles home. The headquarters had moved up a good deal since we had checked through a few hours earlier. Finally we drove home across the Taeryong in the eerie moonlight which clothed the wild, deserted land in a pale shroud of sombre beauty. The moon was at the full that night, and we had seen its huge yellow orb match the glory of the dying sun across the whole expanse of the sky. I am always nervous when I feel impelled to write some of this kind of stuff in cables, but I did, sparingly, and because of that all these days and nights which immediately follow are as real now as they were then. It was much too late to eat when we reached 1st Corps, but we went down to the general's mess and were well served, and then had a nightcap with Van Brundt to find out what had been happening elsewhere. There was no excitement. The slack of the eight or nine miles, softened by the patrols, had been taken up almost without incident. From the Yellow Sea through Pakchon and Kunu-ri, and eastward, the United Nation's army advanced in line abreast. We wrote our stories and climbed into our sleeping bags. We needed all the sleep we could get, for there would be but

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little more, as the days and nights became a timeless nightmare ending almost in despair.

m Early on the 25th Homer and I decided to join Colonel Stevens in Chongju. There appeared to be little reaction over the whole front following a night of almost unnatural calm. The streams of refugees had turned about and were recrossing the Chongchon in droves in the wake of the advancing army. Hope once more leapt within them as they strove to regain their ruined villages, and urged their lean oxen and the occasional donkey to greater efforts. Over all the frozen rice paddy flats of the northern bank the women crouched with little wooden bowls salvaging the rice, grain by grain, as it had fallen after the hurried harvest. Men, women and children manipulated bundles of 'rice straw into hollow stacks, like wigwams, into which they nested their babes, and later would nest themselves. Again it was a day of brilliant sunshine after a moderate night of not more than 20 degrees of frost, and the rivers were frozen only at the fringes. Half-way to Pakchon the jeep, which had been missing badly, almost conked. The jeeps were subjected to such terrific wear and tear, especially with the blankets of dust forever caking up the engines, that they were in need of constant attention. With difficulty I coaxed two or three miles out of her and turned into a motor unit on the outskirts of a village. The traffic was pounding over the roads, and all motor units were furiously busy, but a sergeant promised aid without a trace of irritation. Americans are at their magnificent best in this setting, the most amiable mechanics in the world. This is work they understand and like. Within half an hour the sergeant had fitted a new contactbreaker, ripped out the old plugs and put in new, tightened the fan belt, tested and replaced a good deal of the electrical equipment, slung out the battery and found another. And there we were, as good as new, for twenty-four hours at least. "Think nothing of it, feller," said the sergeant with a grin, raising a grimy hand as he bent his head into another engine.

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We zoomed over the road, gloating with our regained power, for the traffic was nose to tail and roaring in all directions, serving Colonel Stevens's regiment and the rest of the division. But we could now cut in and out at speed with confidence that the jeep would respond. We found the colonel in Chongju. The town, stricken for the third time in as many weeks, was the usual ruin, and the only interest was a score of prisoners squatting stoically on their heels at a cross-road under guard. They were a mixed lot. Half a dozen Chinese, sturdy, bulbous-bodied, like cottage loaves, and looking as though they could give you a terrific bunt in the midriff with their round bullet heads. I don't ever remember seeing a human head instantly as a 'weapon' before, but these round shaven heads on short necks on top of round bullet bodies were unpleasant. There were a few North Koreans, one with jet-black hair and a supercilious, contemptuous smirk on his long brooding face, an obvious communist. He had his orders in a matchbox, and had been left behind (according to his statement and his orders) to stir up trouble in the rear after the Americans had passed through. The colonel had sent patrols out in all directions, and that was as far as he was going for the moment. It had the feel of the jungle: you don't see any animals, but know that they are watching you all the time. In the same way the enemy flowed away from the patrols and the spearheads, dissolving from the path like wraiths. I drove back hell for leather and took the Kunu-ri road on the south bank of the Chongchon to find Tom Lambert. This road, running beside the river and railway, and with the hills bearing down upon it, already held more than a hint of the nightmare it was so soon to become. The heavy transport of two full divisions on this axis had already crumbled the shoulders to powder. Endless trails of refugees kept wisely to the water's edge and to the broken railway tracks, picking their ways carefully over the bombed bridges and viaducts. I knew the road well. 9th Corps headquarters was in a field by the roadside within a mile or two of a road junction which ran southward through magnificent mountain country, here and there steeply

" In the day we could move back over the eerie wilderness of the night . . . " (p. 248). Dwight Martin, Author, Homer Bigart.

Chipping free of ice.

H.M.S.

Kenya.

After hosing down with hot water (p. 288).

..

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enclosed by high jagged ridges, to Sunch'on, and on to Pyongyang. This road might be vital, and was the only possible alternative withdrawal route, apart from the main road to the westward, which runs from Sinanju southward through Sukch'on to Pyongyang. On this road 1st Corps had their headquarters. From Sukch'on a good but very dangerous lateral road winds through wooded hills to Sunch'on. The importance of this oblong of roads could not be overestimated. We turned into 9th Corps and found Tom. It was late afternoon, and there was an anxious tension. We tried to get hold of the chief of staff, but he had rushed off forward to the regimental commanders of the 2nd Division. All we could discover was that 'something had happened' to the South Koreans in the centre. Counter-attacks were coming in strongly against the 25th Division and the 2nd Division, but were being held. No ground had been yielded, or very little. Meanwhile the Turks had been ordered hurriedly to Tokchon. This was alarming, for we knew that the Turks had rushed up to be used to fight as soon as possible, and Tokchon should have been miles behind the South Korean lines. We had a brief council of war and decided to press on ten miles or so to Kunu-ri and to try to discover something 'hard' before getting back to 1st Corps. The drive back to 1st Corps from Kunu-ri in the conditions of the previous week took from two to three hours. But now, the way heavy transport was growing, with tanks and artillery travelling in both directions, it might take four or five hours-or anything. We dared not leave it too late, for the very essence of our work is to tell the story. When we got to Kunu-ri the regimental commander was shaky, and odd mortar shells were coming in. He was a big heavy man with a red face, and a nose full of small veins. He might have been over-cold, over-weary, but he was nervous. There was a distinct sense of confusion in Kunu-ri, of not knowing what was going on, of not having things under control. We managed to find the chief of staff of 9th Corps, a brigadier general exuding confidence, and with all his wits about him. We knew from him that heavy attacks were coming Q

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in, but he wouldn't say much. His job, as he saw it, was to breathe confidence into every man he saw, and he was doing it. Liaison with the right flank of the 2nd Division had ceased to exist. There appeared to be nothing but emptiness for more than a hundred miles, at least all the way to the tip of the Chosin Reservoir, where the marines were holding Hakalwoo-ri. A long way. Another country. The whole centre of the peninsula might be open. We had the news that mortar shells were coming into Tokchon, and that the 1st Cavalry had been ordered to rush in behind the South Korean Corps and turn them back. The South Koreans had caved in completely almost at the first sound of 'Christmas', and certainly at the first sight of Chinese. Neither the cavalry, nor the Turks, nor any power on earth, could stop them. The centre had gone. We couldn't reach corps that night, for the transport was still coming up nose to tail, and the hills were black in the lurid fl.ares of the great fires of rice trash, which the truck drivers burned by the roadsides as they waited to move on. We found beds, bitterly cold without our bags, at 9th Corps, jittering themselves to move out at a moment's notice. Within thirty-six hours the whole offensive had come to a standstill and was already fighting desperately with the whole of its flank exposed. The 27th Brigade were bashing their way across country to Sunch'on, and a few South Korean units, stragglers from the corps which had disintegrated, were coming in prepared to fight and being absorbed into flanking units. Colonel Stevens, we learned, was already withdrawing from Chongju, throwing out a strong rearguard screen, but getting back across the Taeryong as fast as he could in order to hold open the vital bridgehead across the Chongchon to Sinanju. The 25th Division as well as the 24th would have to come out that way, or most of them if they came out. In the centre the 25th and the 2nd were meeting fierce lightning attacks, usually in company strength, from all directions. They simply had to hold because there was no way out until all this great mass of an army moving forward could be put into reverse over one main road and one secondary road which might not be there. And on this road, the road from Kunu-ri to Sunch'on and the only conceivable lifeline

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available to the 2nd Division, the troops of four nationsAmericans, South Koreans, Turks and British- faced the ominous emptiness eastward while the powerful British 29th Brigade and its great Centurion tanks were making a dash northward, determined to reach Sukch'on and link across the lateral with the 27th. The nightmare had begun. For five days and nights we lived on the Sinanju to Kunu-ri road and eastward, and on the road to Sunch'on, as the heavy transport, the guns and tanks, in a growing crescendo of disaster, piled up nose to tail, mile upon mile, at the mercy of an enemy with aircraft, or even artillery. And the yellow dust came down like a pall upon the frozen river and enveloped us. Through it all by day and night the refugees trudged pitifully in the last grip of despair and exhaustion, fording the frozen river with their naked feet, small boys and girls bearing their smaller brothers and sisters upon their backs, others, men, women and children, slumped by the river, the road, the railtrack, perhaps not to rise again, their heads and hands hanging limply between their knees. I remember a boy with his small brother on his back picking his way bravely across a broken railway viaduct, leaping the breaks with a drop of fifty feet or more beneath him. I see him silhouetted against the leaden sky, an heroic figure, greater than tragedy. Soon there was a new menace for these beaten people, for groups of South Korean troops were moving back, armed, sullen and dangerous, and no one had any time to do anything about them. Now the skies, which had been brilliant with moon and stars by night and sun by day, became leaden grey above the everlasting dust. There was a great white halo enclosing the fiery orange ball of the sun, and the heavy sky grew steadily more sullen through all the 26th, so that you could almost see the cold grip the river, quelling its last feeble movement, binding it, and holding it solid in ice. The thermometer dropped below zero Fahrenheit. Tom Lambert, tall, strong, dark, and with an extraordinary gentleness in his eyes, his voice, his whole bearing, did most of the driving. He drove with complete confidence, daring, as

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you had to be, but always cool, always judging the risk to inches and knowing his mind. Homer loathed it. He thought he was missing death by inches and miracles as we swerved from the tracks of tanks, for there was no progress in the traffic streams which filled most of the narrow road. He reminded us of the same dangerous ice on the same river bank every time we came to it, and it made something to laugh about. Homer would pull himself straight with one hand on the wind-screen top- we all three wedged in front of the open jeep- and begin: "Tom (whichever one of us it was), sss-ss- ssay, Tom." We drove carefully on, four-wheel drive, dragging her up the embankment. . . . "Ice! " finished Homer. "Oh, that ice! We know about that ice, Homer." And Homer would subside, and fumble for a cigarette, and we'd try to light it with gloves on, and finally take them off, so that our knuckles were dark brown with wide cracks.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE FLIGHT FROM THE CHONGCHON

THE NIGHT of 26th November was a night of horror for the men in the forward companies and battalions on the right flank of the 2nd Division. Wild Chinese attacks came in with terrific ferocity and complete surprise, so that the men awoke from their frozen holes to the bugle calls and the bursting grenades, with friend and foe inextricably mixed in a world of lurid shadow, screams and death. By noon on the 27th we had begun to see more clearly through the fog of war. If the Chinese could smash through the remaining half of the hinge (for the 'door' had gone) and cut through the Kunu-ri-Sunch'on road the bulk of the Eighth Army would be trapped. The position in the centre of the peninsula was even worse than we had imagined. The important junction of Tokchon had fallen before the Turks could possibly reach it, and one Turkish battalion, almost isolated, was fighting furiously five miles short of the town and to the south-west, while the rest of the brigade held a sector of the Sunch'on road north of the British 27th Brigade, which had produced itself swiftly in position. The guns of the Turks were thundering over our heads as we came down over the hills, and the whole valley seemed filled with smoke and flame. It was hopeless now to try to make any proper contact. I saw Yazici run in and out of a farmhouse in a burning village, and there were many faces I knew. Their fighting blood was up, and their leading battalion stood like a rock while the enemy tide flowed all round it, but never over it, nor did it budge one inch in reverse. Back on the main lateral beside the ominous Chongchon we battered our way into Kunu-ri against the immense weight of guns, tanks and trucks coming out, and beyond into the 245

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comparative peace, the pocket of isolation, which somehow must be maintained between the enemy and disaster. Under the cone of a burning hill we found battalion headquarters of the night with a dozen or more Chinese, frozen stiff in the grotesque attitudes in which they had fallen, like a troop of tumblers. Two squadrons of tanks were deployed over the broad river flats at this point, their guns pounding the hills. A train with a dozen heavy trucks lay derelict where it had been hit from the air coming round the curve of the hillside on the gradient. G.l.s lay exhausted under the road embankment unmindful of the slow swish of shot and shell and the enemy mortaring. Sometime during the afternoon we found Colonel Freeman, commanding the regiment. He welcomed us to his small tent and rose to shake hands. He is a tall, well-built man, yet lean and strong, with a fine sculptured head, grey-eyed, handsome. We were with him throughout a great part of the next three days. His calm and courage never faltered. His inspiration to his officers and men was beyond all praise. I never saw him rattled for an instant; never heard his calm steady voice raised, though it was as clear as a bell. The eyes grew more intense and deeper set, the jaw more lean, but the slow humour was always there, discernible in the eyes and the corners of the mouth. I tell you about him because I think that he, more than any other man, kept his foot in the door. Colonel Freeman was determined to hold on to Kunu-ri long enough to let the army through. That was the best any man dare hope for. For by the afternoon of 27th November it had become more than withdrawal: it was retreat. Soon it was to be flight. But Colonel Freeman's regiment of the 2nd Division must fight this vital rearguard action. I think I should say that this was the main point of the whole Chinese offensive. Up forward there was no talk of 'Chinese hordes', and there weren't any. In adversity these Americans were as good men and as brave as there are. They were not soldiers, but they could not help that, and they came to understand their limitations in battle. They did the best they could, and it was a brave best. They didn't glamorisefor this was beyond glamour.

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It is an undisputed fact that the total enemy forces did not outnumber the United Nations, and if air, artillery, and the great naval power deployed round the coasts with many vital targets, well within range of its heavy guns, is taken into account, there could be no comparison in fighting strength. But the enemy had grasped the initiative. He could and did, as he had done before, ignore whole sections of the front and concentrate hammer blows at key points. He ignored the roads, and used pack animals to move swiftly through the hills. A day or two earlier I had written in a despatch: the roads and towns may be ours, but the hills belong to the enemy. By now the roads and towns were no longer ours, for these hills dominated them and rendered them untenable. I remember very clearly Colonel Freeman's words to us soon after we joined him, and the pattern was piecing together for him and for us all too clearly, as his battalion and company commanders came in. He looked at us with his calm, humorous, grey eyes, and spoke quietly: "Without air or artillery they're making us look a little silly in this Godawful country." We three wrote these words down. It was a game of blindman's-buff in these wild rugged irregular hills in which the enemy moved freely, easily eluding the groping arms of the Americans by day, and swooping down upon them, blind in the night, with devastating fury and magnificent discipline. Not a shot was fired by the Chinese until they were within thirty yards of the target. Meanwhile the Americans were road-bound with their immense weight of useless weapons. The guns were rolling back. The great columns had gone into reverse. For a hundred miles the huge vehicles crammed the narrowing road lanes nose to tail. Back across the Chongchon the 25th Division were coming over the fordings while Colonel Stevens threw his rearguard round the Pakchon bridgehead and the road through to Sinanju. But there were few enemy hampering him; only the sense of terrific urgency before the torrent might burst these slender human dams and envelop the whole Eighth Army. The smoke rising from ten thousand fires blotted out the moon and threw the stricken figures of the toiling refugees into

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silhouette, like some ancient frieze, an endless repetition of characters, the human story, plodding on. There was no rest or sleep by night. Within five seconds of wild bugle calls the attacks came in, seven men out of each ten literally draped with percussion grenades on sticks, and the remaining three with automatic weapons. The lead battalion across the river was hit on the night of the 27th, and as it tried to withdraw across the Chongchon the Chinese were already waiting on the banks with machine guns sited in the American rear. A bazooka brewed up an American tank, and in the lurid glare of the blazing tank the battalion struggled through, the remaining tanks carrying men across the frozen river. The jeeps had frozen solid to the ground, and men struggled in the shallows at the fording point with their unwieldy shoe paks freezing in great blocks to their feet. And all the time the enemy machine guns rasped their leaden terror through the night. The second in command was no sooner across the river than he turned back with a tank to rescue more of his men under a hail of fire. A grenade exploded on his. tin hat, but by a miracle the dazed man struggled to his feet, collected ten of his comrades, regained the tank and got back. Others bore wounded on their backs. From a military point of view it was a disaster. There was never any question of staying and meeting these attacks, of regaining the lost ground by day-for it was deserted- and even pushing forward. Only trained and disciplined troops could do that. These men acted and behaved as heroically as men may hope to behave, but their attitude when attacked was always, quite openly: "Let's get the hell out of here! " And they did. Often it would have paid them to stay, but this would have meant hard training, good officers and N.C.0.s, a fire plan, strict discipline, and the things they had not got. It was curious that in the day we could move back over the eerie wilderness of the night. It was like moving in a land of shadows and ghosts and dead. It was a terrible prospect to stand in the midst of the burning hills which rise in cones and ridges from the bleak banks of the Chongchon in a desolate grandeur, and it is as though an ocean had been frozen, petrified suddenly, in the midst of storm, a wild ·riot of hills.

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"We're like the meat in a sandwich," said a young G.I., "and the Chinks are the bread. " There was a quietness and humour in the Americans I had not known before. You could see here quite clearly the great gash in the middle of the whole race where the middle class would have been. At the top there were these first-class colonels, and at the bottom these firstclass people. But all the people from whom officers, civil servants, and all the rest of the educated men of background and integrity are drawn just were not there. "Seems like the Chinese don't want us on that Yalu River," remarked a sergeant, as he led a weary section back to find some transport. He said it without a trace of bitterness. It was 'O.K. with him'. They could have it. And they all knew that the Korean war was ended, and whatever was happening now was something different and full of foreboding. Ferrero had asked a colonel about replacements early on in the battle. "Replacements! " said the colonel. "They all went back home when the war was over." At one casualty clearing station on the river road that evening of the 27th they had had more than 1,000 wounded through since morning, but there was no priority now-no means of priority, and ambulance vans took their chance with all the rest. Even generals were bogged down in their jeeps hour after hour while their staff colonels trudged ahead trying to see what could be done, but nothing could be done on that nightmare road beside the Chongchon River. By noon on the 28th it was touch and go. The Korean police were tearing off their arm bands as we went through the ruined villages, and there was a quite hideous sense of decay about Kunu-ri. It was deserted now. The Chinese had been in overnight and out again, entirely ignoring a batch of abandoned jeeps in good condition. They didn't want the roads. We went out into the sinister no-man's-land a mile or two beyond the town and found the battalion commander with the remains of his men. "They're breathing on our necks," he said, "but we'll not go faster. We must hold the road." Indeed they couldn't retreat any faster, for the last truck was barely two miles back. The escape routes were clogged

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solid, and the lack of road discipline was telling now. On the late afternoon of the 28th Colonel Freeman, whose home, Tom Lambert discovered, was in Roanoke, Virginia, said : " It's been miracle after miracle. We need one more.'" Overhead the American jet fighters swooped above the dust haze, and the crows wheeled incessantly over the columns, cawing harshly. There was barely a mile or two of depth now to that vital junction whkh led down to Sunch'on where the British 27th were holding the gate open to Pyongyang and the south. But it was a terrible gate to approach, through about twelve miles of narrow hill-enclosed road, a death trap. We left Colonel Freeman and his last battalion at noon on the 29th. A jeep with an English driver hailed me, and I think the jeep was meant for me, sent up by Tom Laister. At any rate the young soldier was lost and unable to make headway in this chaos. He had no idea of using his gears, and couldn't steer very well. I took the jeep and the driver over. The idea was for us all to meet at 1st Corps as soon as we could. I picked up a young G.I. from his officer. The boy was green under his mask of dust, and wracked with abdominal pain. We made him as comfortable as we could, and he never uttered a sound of complaint in the next six hours of jolting misery as I bashed back somehow. But 1st Corps had gone. "This is the crucial night," Colonel Freeman had said as we shook hands. And this knowledge seemed written on every face. I managed to get the young G.I. into medical hands. Every ambulance was full, and the field hospitals on the move, but I forced a doctor to take him into his tent and on his transport. The boy had been in a foxhole forward for three days and nights. He was almost dead. But he wasn't a boy any more, for in these three days and nights boys became men very quickly, and often just before they died. II

I picked up one of Reuter's men where I st Corps had been and was glad of his company. It was a long slow grind with 'All the dialogue in this chapter is verbatim from notebooks, and is exactly as spoken.

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side lights in endless procession, clinging to the rear light ahead, and the dark shapes and shadows looming swiftly, and finally, after about four hours and fifty miles, we found part of 1st Corps in a field a mile or two off the road. The Reuter man had been left with full instructions, and thank God they were right, and he remembered them. Homer and Tom were waiting and had decided to drive on in the attempt to reach Pyongyang and communications. There was no other chance of getting a story through. 1st Corps had nothing. The general and his chief of staff were still somewhere forward, and signals were on the move. We loaded our stuff and wedged ourselves three abreast, with Lee Ferrero tucked into our bedrolls in the back. I left the young English driver in my bed, gave him a hasty note to his headquarters, and told him to get back in the morning. It was long after midnight when we reached Pyongyang. We got tangled up on the outskirts and whenever we asked we had the answer "Hi-Joe ! " and a wave of the hand, until I thought Lee would brain the next character who said "Hi-Joe". And then we realised that the Korean word for Pyongyang is 'Heijo', for almost all these places have three names, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and it can be muddling. Meanwhile Lee had discovered that at some stage of the journey my bedroll had gone overboard while he had been dozing. We had not eaten that I could remember, and had been on the road in hair-raising conditions and saturating dust since dawn. The sentries at advanced Eighth Army headquarters were already trigger happy, reacting to the news from the front, and indeed it would have been less than a miracle if the Chinese had swarmed into Pyongyang itself. We didn't know the password, but Homer stammered our way through. His prestige was impressive and valuable. I mention all these things because I think it is important to understand our states of mind when we wrote many of our stories, and our reactions to events. We were not clubmen in armchairs, weighing the pros and cons, but very weary men with nerves stretched taut, and this was the way we heard the news of the atom bomb. It was the first thing which greeted us as we blinked into the press room at headquarters, and I know

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now that it had been in my mind since Inchon, the 'atom mind', this long-range bombing of the defenceless. It was a large room with two stoves, coffee, typewriters and two telephones, two majors, a corporal, and two or three agency men. They were vague about it, but it seemed that there was a real chance that America would use the atom bomb against China. Truman had made some kind of statement, and the news was bringing horror to mankind. A young broadcaster had been out on the road with his microphone meeting the first of the semi-hysterical lads of the 2nd Division as they came in from Kunu-ri, and asked 'their opinion'. "Hell, yes, use it. They're overrunning our C.P.s ! " (they were the words). We three slumped down as though we had been shot, each with our terrible thoughts, as the monstrous possibility drowned our senses for a while. I know my thoughts were, how to get home, to die with Mel and the babes. It seemed vital that we should all be together when we died. Oddly, many others, when we sorted it out afterwards, had similar thoughts. But we had to pull ourselves together. There was a special directive issued by the Eighth Army commander, and a major handed it to us. We read it slowly. We read it again. Homer, I think it was, said: "I-i-is th-th-this some kind o-oof joke?" The last word came out like a bullet. But it wasn't a joke. Tom said: "Come. We must get our stories done. Our victory stories ! " Here is the directive: HEADQUARTERS EIGHTH UNITED STATES ARMY JN KOREA (EUSAK) Information Section, advance APO 301 FOR RELEASE AT 22: 45 HOURS 29 NOVEMBER 1950: MEMO TO THE PRESS NO. 'Ad 14 Statement by Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker: The assault launched by the Eighth Army five days ago probably saved our forces from a trap which might well

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have destroyed them. Had we waited passively in place, the two hundred thousand Chinese troops thrown against my lines would have increased within a short time to double that strength. From beyond the Yalu they would have undoubtedly brought the two hundred thousand additional Chinese troops known to be assembled there. We naturally had hoped to find at least some semblance of truth in the public assurances of the Chinese communist authorities that no formal military intervention had been perpetrated. However, only by assault tactics could the actualities have been fully developed. In my opinion, this saved my army from possible destruction. The timing of our attack to develop the situation was~ indeed, most fortunate. At first no one would believe that this was not a hoax, but when they knew that it was meant to be serious, it spread consternation, anger and dismay among all ranks with whom I came into contact in the next few days. A day or two later General MacArthur was to issue a somewhat similar document in which he referred to the 'surreptitious' Chinese, complaining in effect that they had not fully advised his intelligence staff of their intentions. 'Surreptitious' became the usual adjective for weeks. Everyone spoke of 'the surreptitious Chinese', and wondered what they might be, surreptitiously, at. But there was no vestige of humour for us in the situation on that hideous night, when not far from the fronts of our minds was the thought that all our world was on the brink of ruin. I managed to give about 300 words to George Polster in bed at Tokyo at about 3.30 a.m., and John Rich of I.N.S., out of the kindness of his heart, took another 350 words to make my deadline by minutes. By what seemed a miracle the magnificent cavalier figure of Roland Hurman of the Daily Mail strode into the room, ginger hair, moustaches, blue eyes glinting, a veritable musketeer, Porthos, I think, Porthos at his most superb when his sword held all its cunning. Not the equal of D'Artagnan, but none the less a legend of a man. Roland had come out recently and had been tied up with the 29th Brigade. I knew him slightly, but it was a good slightly. Ten minutes later he had wafted me to a building

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on the high ground on the northern outskirts of the city where Public Relations of the 29th Brigade had, at last, at this late hour, established a camp. He found me tea, and six blankets, three under and three on top, and I lay on the floor. I had given the directions to Homer and Tom, and they came in an hour later. It wasn't much of a place, but it was somewhere to lay our heads. III

Throughout the next three days the tempo of the retreat was rising to the flood. Up to eighteen hours out of each twentyfour we continued to batter our way forward against the columns converging in twin streams upon Pyongyang, and at night, usually weary, bitterly cold and depressed, we struggled back amid the charging herd of vehicles. By night the lights stretched for miles girdling the hills like chains of fireflies, and the double columns inched slowly through the bottle neck of the capital across the Taedong River to safety. It was made the more miserable for us because we met the constant jibes of the troops taunting us with shirking the front and being too late, and to go back to bed in the distant safety of Seoul. They were in peculiar humour, for others made no secret of their frank relief, and that 'Home by Christmas' was as good by this means as any other. But the tide was not all one way. Vital supplies had still to be produced for the rearguards, and the British 29th Brigade forced their way doggedly north against the wild stream of tanks, trucks and guns which roared out of the dust clouds threatening, and at times bringing, death to those more orderly than themselves. A proportion of Korean trucks, with obviously doubtful civilians, contrived to break down, as they always did, at key points, and we wondered, as we had always wondered, why these vehicles, quite probably intent on minor sabotage, were permitted on the roads at times of urgent troop movement. Through all this the 29th Brigade dragged themselves and their guns to deploy from Sukch'on and to form a rearguard barrier with the 27th Commonwealth Brigade and the 1st Cavalry. In the darkness of these days and nights we three struggled over rugged tracks seeking headquarters and generals

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to try to construct some order out of this chaos. It seemed that the enemy had broken contact, and no one had the slightest idea of enemy intentions or dispositions, or where he might crop up. To us it seemed likely that the enemy had been astounded by the speed and magnitude of his success and was forced to regroup before attempting to catch up with the flight of the Eighth Army. Down the roads, pushed into the ditches by the raging trucks, the remains of the Turkish Brigade struggled back on foot to Pyongyang, having fought themselves and the enemy to a temporary standstill with the utmost gallantry. It was thought at first that something like disaster had overtaken at least one of their battalions, but the stragglers piled up steadily at the collecting point near the city, and the worst fears weren't realised. But disaster had overtaken a good part of the 2nd Division, or it would be more true to say that they had overtaken disaster. Unable to clear their half of the road block through the narrow channel which they had to pass to Sunch'on, and impatient to be through, they were ambushed and enfiladed mercilessly by the Chinese. Refusing to move on their feet, they had relied on the usual air strikes and attempted to bash through. Wild rumours abounded. We came upon large villages, in the almost untouched country between the roads, thronged with people, piling up supplies of vegetables, fortifying their homes against the worst of winters, and engaged in feverish activity. Grandfathers, fathers and sons flailed the rice with ancient fl.ails, whirling in slow eccentric motion round their heads as the husk flew. The last train chugged slowly down the line from Anju, seeming like a long conglomeration of humanity clinging together by some invisible means, as pins to a magnet. The engine, the cab, the flat cars and trucks were literally submerged with people. And through every valley, in the lee of every hill, trudged the slow processions of the lost refugees. On 1st and 2nd December I borrowed a jeep from the 29th Brigade pool and struggled alone over the even more ominous route to Sunch'on, a wild road upon which it seemed that the enemy might surge at any moment, and it seemed always a miracle as one went through the defiles in unbroken silence.

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On 1st December I learned the tragic story of the 2nd Division from the Middlesex. It had been arranged that brigade should clear one half-about six miles-of the narrow enfiladed road, and hold it open, and that the 2nd Division would themselves clear the other half. The task had been allotted to the Middlesex, and they had achieved it with one man wounded. Then to their horror and dismay the 2nd Division had attempted to 'bash through'. Firing wildly in all directions, the column had driven at full speed under the murderous fire of Chinese machine guns. Jeeps and trucks careered on over their dead and dying, leaving them on the freezing road. Scarcely a vehicle came through unscathed. All through the night the Middlesex had worked rescuing the wounded from the freezing horror of the night. In a few hours they had used up the whole of their medical supplies and had saved many from a slow and horrible death. I sat with a small group of officers by candlelight. We had made some cocoa and sat mostly in silence with our thoughts. We were all too deeply shocked at this full revelation, which all had suspected but few had faced, and we were all too deeply aware of human frailty to blame or judge. But, above all, the statement of General Walton Walker had shocked all ranks profoundly and made them feel that they were out of touch with reality. The first grandiloquent phrases were also beginning to seep through from General MacArthur in Tokyo, and from his headquarters, and these, too, filled one with a terrible embarrassment, chagrin, and almost despair. I found the brigadier coated with yellow dust and very grave. He didn't want to say much, and indeed there was little to be said. He could not feel happy about the position. He had no idea of 'the form', and was facing heaven knew what. He had no firm orders, and we were not represented at the planning conferences. He simply proposed to hang on until ordered to do something else. A staff officer of the 2nd Division came to report and to apologise. It was pitiful. He was a good-looking young man with an honest straightforward face and fine bearing. I don't think the brigadier wanted him to open his mouth, for there was nothing to be said.

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"I'm sorry, sir," he began. The brigadier's face was grimmer than I had ever seen it. "Why didn't you break the road block?" he demanded. "We tried to, sir. We sent a company. It didn't seem to make headway." The man was near to tears, and I wished he would simply salute and go and not say anything. "We had air strikes, sir. We thought we could bash through." They still thought that the work of soldiers could be done without soldiers, and were paying a terrible price. The brigadier made a slight gesture of dismissal. I went back to Pyongyang. Without a sleeping bag and my heavy outer coat, all of which had gone overboard from the jeep, the nights were wakeful misery, and I was beginning to feel exhausted. I walked up to the escarpment on the northeastern outskirts of Pyongyang on the early morning of 3rd December and looked out over the plain for nearly twenty miles to the foothills of the rugged central range. There wasn't a sight or sound of movement over all this wide stretch of open country, and a brigade could have defended this against whole armies, inflicting appalling losses. Westward the twin clouds of dust marked the trails of flight, but the terrible surge was abating. The two British brigades with the 1st Cavalry Division stood alone. Bernard Forbes urged me to fly back and rest. There was an order that no correspondents should attempt a 'last aircraft out of Pyongyang story'. Everyone was returning. Jimmy Hays, Roland Hurman and David Walker, who were all comparatively fresh, for they had been with the 29th through these last wild days, wanted to wait a further day, and gave me their stories to get home for them as soon as I could. Then Bernard and I went down to the airstrip together, and by pure chance found ourselves in the midst of the excitement which was enveloping Hamhung. It was late afternoon before we found a friendly Australian pilot to take us off, and at the last moment he found that he had to report in at Hamhung before going on to Kimpo. The Australians had been ordered to evacuate their aircraft from Hamhung within a few hours, to make room for the U.S. marine fighter aircraft attempting to R

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save their division. The marines and the 7th Division of General Almond's 10th Corps, fighting their separate war on the east, were fighting their way back to a bridgehead enclosing Hamhung and centred on the port of Hungnam, from which the U.S. Navy had mobilised to take them off. So we flew north-eastward across Korea, to land in the snows beside the Japan Sea. The huge box cars had shed their back doors and their cavernous backs were wide open, the more easily to drop supplies of troops and materials to the men battling from Hakalwoo-ri. A group of Royal Marine commandos were fighting their way on their feet to meet the marines and try to help. It was good to find Bernie Kaplan and Freddie Sparks in a tent with a warm welcome. A group of officers discussed the situation optimistically, and one staff officer used these deadly words: "They'll bash their way through!" "God help them if they do," I said. That night the battle of the Hamhung bridgehead had begun, and complete censorship was clamped down. It was the main focal point of the war for the next fourteen days, and the censorship did not prevent Time and Newsweek giving the full story in detail as it dragged out its course. It was late when we flew out of Hamhung that night, and a snowstorm kept us out of Kimpo so that we were forced to land at Taegu short of petrol. In the aircraft I drafted out my story, as difficult a piece as I have ever had to write. I think it rounds off this tragic chapter, and it reproduces some of my feelings at the time. Here it is: "The British Commonwealth Brigade, the Argylls, Australians and the Middlesex, after more than ninety days in the line, face an enemy of unknown proportions, unknown intentions, and unknown dispositions. They are almost alone. The thickly wooded hills to the north, east and south are almost certainly infested with well-trained, well-armed, mobile groups of enemy, highly skilled in guerilla warfare, unhampered by transport or heavy weapons, and able to produce powerful attacks from almost any direction at will. Every road, track

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and defile is a death trap. Until the attack comes the enemy is invisible. Aircraft ranging incessantly over this wilderness of rugged mountain, from which the smoke of many fires rises to merge with the low cloud haze, rarely report signs of life or movement. Villages, towns and roads are deserted. Ammunition dumps, stores, vehicles and artillery, abandoned by the retreating Americans, flare into explosions as the air-force destruction missions deny them to the enemy. But mostly the enemy ignore all this equipment of war. Men have beaten machines. Short-range war has defeated long-range war. "Without well-trained, well-disciplined infantry war may not be won, and the American Army is virtually without infantry. For six days and nights I have witnessed this army in all the phases of war from attack to flight. It has not been possible accurately to assess the weight of attack which caused this tragic debacle. Nor has it been possible from the air or from intelligence sources. Yet at the first impact the South Koreans, having little heart in the business, caved in, and the whole army with them. At no time over the whole left flank, from the Yellow Sea through Chongju eastward beyond Kunuri, was there an enemy attack, or sustained pressure, comparable with small-scale actions of the European war. "Usually by night, to wild bugle calls and using flares as signals, the attacks swooped upon command posts, easily eluding, killing and capturing the weary men in the foxholes. At once withdrawal began, and the enemy, moving swiftly on the flanks of bewildered units, cut off and enfiladed escaping troops. Each day the rearguard columns licked their wounds and awaited the hideous night. Against this nightmare warfare, undisciplined, ill-led, ill-trained troops, even scornful of discipline, as in some way infringing their rights, could find neither defence nor attack. Unaccustomed to march, and clinging to their vehicles and equipment, they offered themselves as a sacrifice to the enemy. They were not short of courage, but of all the arts of war. "Thus through this tragic and pitiful week while rearguards strove bravely to hold the last bridgeheads with many individual acts of heroism, the crescendo of retreat rose, and for more than a hundred miles the vast mechanised mass of

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transport thundered over two main, narrow, escape routes, bogging down in undisciplined chaos. Military Police, unaware of locations, unaware of the first principles of maintaining control, other than by the bludgeon, failed completely to intimidate drivers determined to 'bust the column'. For as much as three hours at a time the lines of communication for those still forward were utterly blocked by those going back. "The tide of refugees grew daily, the men, women, children, lean oxen, donkeys and handcarts, streaming down valleys, roads, rail tracks, submerged under palls of yellow dust, and often mercifully smitten to swifter death by the roaring trucks. No more the flags, no more the welcome to the liberators. "No one knows what the future holds, but the hearts and thoughts of most of us are with the gallant band of the Commonwealth Brigade and the 29th. Whatever happens they will not fail." And they never did.

PART FOUR

THE ROAD BACK

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

TENSION IN TOKYO

THE TENSION in Tokyo was intense. Nerves were frayed and tempers were ragged. Ever more flamboyant statements emanated from the Dictator in his ivory tower. Bravado increased as humility vanished. There had been no mistakes; there were no lessons to be learned. The enemy had been 'surreptitious' and had cheated. And now the enemy was suffering for his behaviour, and was sustaining 'appalling losses' under constant air attack. "We won a lot of real estate, and killed very few enemy," said a spokesman. "Now we've lost a lot of real estate, and are slaughtering the enemy." After the first few hours there was no rest and no relief. My inclination was to re-equip and return at once to Korea. But it was not to be. My tour of duty as a war correspondent was over, and there remained for me some weeks of watching the position from Tokyo, a job for which I had a great dislike. I had a drink with General Robertson, and caught his confidence about the safety of the brigades. "My dear boy," he said, "they're fine. There's nothing to worry about. Have a rest." Bernard and I had had the usual difficult journey, waiting all night, restless at Taegu, cold and sleepless, hearing scraps of disturbing news, running to meet dozens of aircraft, until finally we got off. The first bath had been notable in a long record of baths stretching right back to my first memorable bath when I had come out of the Pampas even dirtier, but less weary, than now, a quarter of a century ago. It was good to shed the great weight of clothing and feel almost naked in white singlet and shorts, white shirt and flannels. One of the joys of being well off must be to afford to wear white linen always, but it means such dozens of everything. 263

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Every hour brought war correspondents back from Korea, and the Marunouchi lounge and the Press Club became hives of anxious gossip and speculation in the shadow of the Chinese and the atom bomb. The flight of the British Prime Minister to Washington brought a respite in the immediacy of the danger, but most of us, I think, were brought face to face with this dreadful power in the frail hands of man for the first time. Four years before a national newspaper bad asked me to write about the threat of the atom bomb, and I had written: there is nothing to fear from atom bombs, or from any weapons. Weapons are inanimate. Neither an axe, nor a gun, nor an atom bomb, can do anything. Man is all that man has to fear. And that is true, I think. In this light the ravings of such men as Senator McCarthy took on a new note of menace, and the deplorable schoolboy letter of President Truman to Hume, the music critic, created nothing less than dismay. At first there was complete unbelief. Everywhere men asked: "Have you heard about it? Have you seen it?" And then there was the story of it all in the American weeklies under the heading: 'L'affaire-Let us Pray.' This, we thought, is the hand that has the power to launch the final disaster and bring mankind to degradation. If these were simply my thoughts I should be inclined to suppress them, for I am fully conscious in writing this book of the weight of responsibility upon any reporter these days. I have suppressed almost all that has arisen purely out of my emotions. These thoughts were freely expressed on all sides. and by the most sober people. But I remember that a wise woman had once comforted me in the realisation of my shortcomings. "You shouldn't worry. Even generals wet their knickers," she had said. Nevertheless, it is apt to be disconcerting when the President of the U.S.A. wets his knickers in public. Seeing it in proportion it should be good, for President Truman has the appeal of the genuine democrat, the common man, as different from the MacArthurs of this world as man may be. Perhaps the world has suffered too much from 'supermen'. But, at the time, this silly letter to Hume was an added source of worry. And it was in this atmosphere of tension on

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all sides that we tried to evaluate the war news. The briefing conferences had become frankly ridiculous. Headquarters, having known nothing, now knew everything. The 'Chinese hordes' were swollen to nearly a million in a few days, though everywhere out of contact. Eighteen divisions were 'pinpointed' to have attacked on the north-west front. "On what do you base this order of battle?" I asked. "On prisoner interrogations," said the briefing colonel. "How many prisoners? " "Between one to three hundred. " I let it rest on that. One to three hundred prisoners had fortuitously come from each of eighteen divisions all deployed at once on this narrow front. The whole Chinese order of battle was then produced in detail and down to digits. The air claims became outrageous. Finally, quietly, without a smile, Michael Davidson asked: "Will you tell us how many Chinese battalions go to a horde, or vice versa? " That was the end of it. The briefings closed down in dudgeon. Piles of 'hand-outs' were stacked throughout the days and nights, and few of them were worth the paper they were written on. They were not military documents, but filled with the phrases of advertising copy writers. The agencies, repeating the gist of all this stuff, were submerging sub-editors' desks, and all we could do was to try to give our editors a measuring rod of value to sort it all out. Meanwhile the 29th Brigade and the 27th had withdrawn in their own time through Pyongyang, and closed the door behind them across the Taedong River. Half a million refugees were reported streaming south, and still the enemy remained 'invisible'. The one cheerful aspect of all this civil and military disaster was that no one felt that MacArthur could survive it, but as the weeks wore on we knew that he could, that he had, and that only a miracle could move him. Then, maybe, he would try to bring the whole edifice down about everyone's ears. On 6th December in answer to Arthur Krock of the New York Times Harold Stassen made a statement on Korea, which in effect was a statement of U.S. Republican policy. It

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called for a cease-fire order to be executed at midnight on 8th December. Nothing happened. Almost at once a complete security black-out shrouded all movements of United Nations troops while the U.S. Navy created an almost perpetual curtain of explosive round the dwindling Hungnam perimeter. British naval units were at the same time doing considerable rescue work from the Chinnampo peninsula.

n I felt always a sense of ill being in Tokyo, that faint, yet definite odour of decay seemed to permeate all things and to haunt my nostrils, while the hideous nose and mouth pads worn by so many of the people were like a visual manifestation of disease. Almost at once I had developed a heavy cold, which with catarrh seemed to be the normal reaction with those who had lived in the dust. It is odd how often after a sustained mental and physical effort, in difficult conditions, that luxury and rest seem disastrous. I struggled through the 6th and 7th, and went down with a heavy and peculiar fever which could not be denied. I could, at any rate, go to bed with a reasonably clear conscience. London had urged me to rest, and from a journalistic point of view I had fulfilled my mission with some success. It was, I believe, the hardest mission of my life in every way, and I could leave my 'blacks' for the new man, write home, and close my eyes for a spell. But I could not close my mind, however weary. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, perhaps the most important of all things, somehow to understand Americans, and to work with them. Even, in the last resort, to fight with them. The almost disastrous handicap of a similar language must be overcome. It means that we misunderstand more easily than those with entirely different languages. It means that we know too much about each other and too little all at the same time. I have been with many Americans in difficult conditions throughout the world in the last fifteen years, and I scarcely remember an individual I have not liked. Watching them, and living by their sides in this war in Korea, I had known their remarkable self-consciousness and aggressive

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class-consciousness- or insistence on a false equality. They refused-as I have said-to be soldiers. The ordinary G.I. could not and did not put service and duty above self. He did not feel, I am sure, that when he died in battle that 'there would be some corner of a foreign field that would be forever the U.S.A.'. He had not the terrific sense of nation, brotherhood, oneness with his own, for his race is still a hotch potch, still in the melting pot. He is at once a lone wolf and unhappy out of the herd. As a lone wolf he is often superb, but it is a difficult role for any man to sustain. Another curious thing I had noticed is that the soldier does not grudge any other soldier his 'luck'. There would be no bitterness expressed when stories of corruption-which were plentiful-came to his ears, of some general or major or sergeant getting home with a 'stack of dollars'. And any man who dodged duty and got a 'cushy' job was envied. All these were simply 'wise guys'. · Often when I was forward with Steve or Homer G.I.s would say in absolute astonishment: "D'youse guys really mean you can go back to Tokyo? or stick round Army if you like? And youse come up here!" And they would shake their heads, and turn to their mates: " Waal, ain't that sumpin'." The idea that you felt you ought to be there and went there without compulsion was outside their scope. But a more likeable crowd of people, especially the mechanics, it would be hard to discover, for they would accept a stranger among them at once, and share all that they had. The only intolerable featureand probably this is simply an English viewpoint-is their really shocking bravado when humility would be more appropriate. Throughout all December and January relations between Americans and 'The Rest' were about as bad as they could be, and I talked freely with my American friends through it all. I think many of them wished that Britain would take the lead in Far Eastern affairs, and I did not meet a man who felt that MacArthur was anything but a most terrible menace, and even a tragic clown. But, I think, to see MacArthur clearly it is only necessary to inflate an ordinary 'G.I.' to outrageous proportions, and there he is. Stand him beside

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such men as Eisenhower-or Wavell-and he shrinks at once to his right size. But the atom bomb dominated my thoughts, for that is one of the new facts of life that no human being may safely sidestep. At Hungnam and other airstrips the fighter pilots were wearing helmets to match the noses of their planes, red helmet, red nose. And in the lounge earlier that evening a Battle of Britain pilot with three rows of real decorations earned in air battle had set his jaw. "This is not for me," he said. And he had refused to fly these missions. For three days I wrote no more. Tom Shaw fetched me a doctor, which was 'impossible', but he did it, and gave me more pills than I'd had in all the rest of my life. Ralph Izzard, dark and grave, but recovered from his melancholy, brought me books, including Mahler's Naked and the Dead with its terrific faithfulness of brutal description. I could not read through it. Ward Price, Lionel Crane, Jimmy Hays, Steve, Bernie and even Georgie Herman, back from wanderings, all kept me company, and I was better informed in bed than I had been when on my feet. It was a short and sharp affair, and I awoke in the early hours of 1lth December, knowing my fever gone and with it some of the nightmare of the last days. I had come to a better understanding of the Americans, and my mind must have been busy, for I seized pencil and paper and wrote for nearly three hours. I knew that my name must never be written, however small, upon an atom bomb, and that I would not purchase a moment of life at such a monstrous price. Each of us, I suppose, will have to face this pretty soon, each according to his conscience. I am not much of a Christian, but I cannot understand how a professed Christian supports this weapon in any circumstances. I wrote in my notes that morning: "The atom bomb is the ultimate expression of cowardice, the ultimate affront to human dignity. And it is the denial of God... . How can one imagine a man, or a body of men, so lacking in humility, that they should dare to sit in conclave to pronounce utter destruction on countless thousands of their fellow men? "

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In Japan the atom bomb has a most terrible significance, and is inescapable, just as the knowledge of war is inescapable to the citizens of Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Yugoslavia, Holland, Norway, Russia, Spain, Turkey, but is outside the awareness of the Americans and Swedes-as though they had been brought up in an entirely different world. I wrote that morning: "Men must learn in the end that there is no substitute for fighting except not fighting, no substitute for war except peace. But if we wish to fight we had best build armies not armaments. There is, fortunately, no substitute for courage, and the machine should never beat the man, for that will spell the doom of mankind. "This much we have learned in Korea, or should have learned." But it seemed to me, too, that the world had not greatly changed and that one of the principal differences between today and yesterday is communications. Almost everybody knows almost nothing about almost everything almost all the time. And everybody tries to sell everybody else their patent medicine elixir 'way of life' formula all the time. Yet basically the same powers fight for much the same interests in much the same places as fifty and sixty years ago, and not much more dangerously. The main change is the emergence of China as a great power. A little more than half a century ago the Western Powers nibbled at China's great corrupted body, biting out Port Arthur, Wei Hei Wei, and a score of soft spots. Russia's designs in the Middle East (heightened now enormously by oil, of course) and the Far East were not vastly different from now. But now Russia, also, is a great power. These are the realities to which we must adapt. The future of Britain, wherever else it may lie, must be with the Commonwealth first and above all things, and what a wonderful future that could be! Already these misfortunes in the Far East were drawing all the Commonwealth peoples into a closer unity, aware of their bonds, so that all at once, here in the Far East, the distinctions had gone. Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, even South Africans, and the people of Britain were simply

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British. Even the Dutch and the French, as Europeans, had become, in a curious way, one with us. All of us brooding on the Americans, and talking of very little else. Whenever we met Americans they destroyed privacy and peace and solitude, as though silence were an enemy. They sought to fill the unforgiving minute, at home and abroad, with hideous noise and useless activity. "Do they imagine," I wrote, "that Gandhi was wasting his time?" The most nauseating expressions in the world for me have become: 'Freedom-loving (or peace-loving) democracy' in the mouths of communists, and 'Our American way of life'. Yet in all this American hubbub with all its seething corruption, its tremendous idealism, its bitter, brutal and lucid self-criticism, its emotional unbalance and sex mania, its cruelty and its kindness, I have found the best of my friends. When I tottered into the Press Club after my fever was done, and we discussed these things, it was Homer Bigart who said to me: "Tommy, we love you because you are one of those people who on rare occasions says something which almost makes sense. " Because I prize these words and these friendships I wrote them down at the end of the notes I had written in bed. We are all striving in our various fashions to master the art of living, and few of us have much hope of success before we die.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

I HAD always the feeling in Japan that I was cheating; that I ought not to be there, and that my place was in Korea, for I am by nature and aptitude a first-hand worker. It was like living a double life, for Korea was always in my thoughts, more real to me than the glitter and tinsel of Tokyo and the nostalgic loveliness of the coasts. While the United Nations forces, with the British brigades covering the rear, continued to fall back in an ever more mysterious silence before the still invisible Chinese pressure, the round of gaiety in Tokyo rose steadily to the climax of Christmas festivity and the celebrations of the New Year. I was the constant companion of Gordon Jenkyns in these weeks, watching the brave struggles of the Japan News and sharing, to some slight extent, in its fortunes. It was one of the few mediums of information for British troops, and at last Gordon was getting his paper into their hands in reasonable quantities. Living like this kept me in constant touch with the news, and with Gordon's host of interesting and often important friends. Australians, Canadians, South Africans and the inhabitants of Great Britain linked themselves in closer bonds of brotherhood than I had ever before experienced. There were innumerable cocktail parties where the problem of MacArthur was freely discussed, and the Canadians revealed themselves in many ways more scared and more angry than any others. "Ottawa," as the Atlantic Monthly's editorial said, "went along with Washington. But it still has a mind of its own. It is in complete disagreement with Washington over its policy vis-a-vis Red China. It is sorely troubled about Formosa and about MacArthur's regime in Japan. It is more and more fearful that Washington will get the world involved in a 271

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war with Russia, where and when the Russians want to fight it. " The editorial continued: "It is one thing for a small nation to follow the leadership of a great power when that leadership is incisive, intelligent, and informed. It is another when the follower begins to feel that the leadership is vacillating, inept, or uninformed. Ottawa has never been particularly awe-struck by General MacArthur. His pronunciamentos plus his something less than omniscient intelligence service have given Ottawa the creeps.... " It could not have been better said by any of us. 'Creeps' was the word. Nevertheless, despite my inability to escape from the acute awareness of war, I did my best to enjoy Japan. On most days we lunched lightly on delicate prawns and slices of fish at the little 'tempura' houses, and drank in strange select 'dives', dining often under the imposing framework of Madame, the immense and talented hostess, at 'Peters', or driving out to the fortress-like Gajo-en Hotel, which seemed to have arisen out of the solid rock on the outskirts of the city. The long narrow streets with their myriad lantern lights grew in fascination as I learned to know my way about, and with Ronnie King I found I could relax in the environs of the glittering Ginza, forgetting most troubles in the delightful nonsense of the curious and delectable little females. Perhaps best of all Gordon discovered for me the beauty of Kawana, and here in this lovely house, equipped for Europeans, on a headland looking down upon a sheltered bay that was pure Cornwall, was real rest and peace. Withal the conscience pricked, and the words of war could not be banished from my ears. We drove out from Tokyo one night in mid-December, buying luscious irresistible fruits from the cascades of the shops, and after three hours bumped over the last lane to Kawana. In the morning I awoke to the pale splendour of Fuji, crowned with a mantle of snow in the dawn. It was a world of enchantment. We played golf, first with an iron until my damaged and painful shoulder freed out a bit, and then quite well with the full assortment of modern weapons. I

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had learned my golf and played a good deal in the days when a 'sammy' was my love, and one had favourite 'jiggers', mashies and baffies. I would sooner hit a good 170-yard shot to the green with a Sammy than with an unromantic No. 3 iron any day. There was more romance in it. But there was romance enough in the very air of Kawana, with the placid brow of Fujisan seeming to look down over this whole countryside with the sheltering friendly benevolence of a god. Sturdy little girls in green dungarees acted as amiable and efficient caddies. From the tees, fairways and greens, the rugged coasts revealed strips of golden sand, and saucy little fir trees sprouted from every seabound rock and islet in the broader expanse of Ito bay. The unfolding of this panorama in ever-changing beauty was so exciting that even the most hardened characters were arrested in their concentrated progress to gaze upon these sights. In the golden orange dusk Fuji grew to glory, crowned with pure translucent white against the darkening sky, and swathed with light veils of snow blowing in the wind. And the slopes of the hills glowed still with ripe oranges. By night the whole bay of Ito was alive and sparkling with the lights of small fishing craft, as though the tiny village, tucked under the headland of Kawana, had grown suddenly to the dimensions of a town. Meanwhile I was sending messages to London in the early hours of the mornings while the Hungnam perimeter dwindled steadily and the troops embarked without experiencing undue pressure. One agency correspondent slightly enlivened the dismal news by sending a message from the beach-head: "Chinese hordes in company strength attacked our positions. . . . " On the main front the enemy, reported steadily building up his forces to enormous strength, crossed the 38th Parallel, and by 18th December the key town of Kaesong, from which the 1st Cavalry had jumped off in October, was again in enemy hands. But now, all at once, there was a more sickening sound than all the din of war. Round Seoul the execution squads of Synghman Rhee had begun to work so feverishly and ferociously at their murderous tasks that a great wave of s

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indignation swept through all those who saw and heard. Men and women (even children, it was reliably written) were dragged from the prisons of Seoul, marched to fields on the outskirts of the town, and shot carelessly and callously in droves and shovelled into trenches. Men of the 29th Brigade, shocked at the sight and sound of some of these horrors near to their camps, reacted with fury. A captain, taking the law into his own bands, saved many of these poor wretches from their doom and stopped executions by force. He was upheld by Brigadier Brodie, who forbade any shooting in the area under his command. On 20th December General MacArthur's headquarters estimated the strength of the North Korean army at 150,000, with 50,000 in reserve, an astounding achievement for an army that had been 'completely destroyed' and had reorganised and trained under ceaseless air attack. On the 23rd the death of General Walton-Walker, Eighth Army commander, when his jeep skidded into a South Korean truck, helped to focus attention on the main front. The cessation of the briefing conference, the security silence and the amateur type of censorship by untrained and unbriefed censors, had created a barrier between the correspondents and the command-or between the command and the people of the world anxious for newsand in these circumstances rumours abounded. It appeared that the United Nations forces had regained their breath and were ready to withstand the full weight of enemy attack in new defensive positions. Ground would not be held because of any 'symbolic' importance it might be considered to possess. From this it seemed reasonably certain that Seoul would not be held. There was a great deal of unease. From my own observations and from many discussions with senior staff officers I had not the slightest doubt that the United Nations could hold in Korea if they were prepared to fight. The North Koreans and Chinese could not possibly maintain the strength of their punch in the south, and their long lines of communication must render the United Nations Air Force more effective. But whether the United Nations Army was prepared to fight or not it was impossible to say. Morale had fallen to a terrible

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low, and British officers said that the. 27th Brigade troops no longer chewed gum and had abandoned anything which might be deemed 'American'. It was a gloomy outlook. The civilian evacuation of Seoul was ordered for Christmas Eve, and again the refugee tide was rising. Enemy pressure began to make itself felt on the direct route to Seoul through Uijongbu, where the British rearguard screen was strongly in position covering the capital. It all looked to me very much like developing into a stalemate and a job for the politicians, and it may be that war has outlived its value as a political instrument. Once more I tried to return to Korea to join with the brigades on what might be the last phase, but I was ordered to stay on in Tokyo. In this atmosphere Ralph Izzard and I went down to Kawana for Christmas and played golf steadily for two days in the intervals between bathing, sleeping and talking on the telephone to Tokyo, while one hundred children of the troops made considerable whoopee round a gigantic revolving Christmas cake and showered us with streamers as we nibbled our turkey and plum pudding, and washed it down with a passable Australian substitute for champagne. Ralph was as anxious to return to Korea as I was, but Ward Price decided to go off to India, leaving Ralph in charge. The 'double-think, double-talk' emanating in an increasing flood from headquarters was seriously disturbing, and the reports tended rather to mislead than to inform an anxious and uneasy public at home. Most of the actual war correspondents had by now returned or were returning from Korea to their normal stations, and the new men coming out were of a more political order, accustomed to finding their ways through the tortuous phrases of diplomacy and political manceuvre. Again I asked for orders to Korea, arranged transport and cabled London. Meanwhile Tokyo was en fete, the boulevards brilliant with the costume colour of gorgeous kimono, as the people in national dress, the girls in their shining jet-black wigs, made obeisance to the real Mikado of Japan, remote but powerful, in his secluded Palace. On New Year's Eve 350,000 reverent subjects filled the approaches to the Palace to pay homage to

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he who was no longer divine. And this was not the least of the outward and obvious signs that the Emperor's high status was still cherished and preserved in the minds of his people. Japan was beginning to stir under the yoke of occupation. Her police had already assumed a considerable portion of their powers, and a considerable police 'army' was under training with a very lightly disguised military organisation. At this time, too, the Nippon Times published a leading article foreshadowing rearmament and heralding the end of the first era of defeat and occupation. The pressure of war in the Far East, and the need for Japan to provide a local balance of power, was hastening Japan's 'liberation'. A passage from the Imperial Edict of 15th August 1945 had impressed me greatly, and now echoed in my mind. I refreshed my memory on it: " ... We have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering the insufferable.... " These words of the Emperor were not forgotten. I had one more experience in Japan which impressed me beyond words, filling me with a kind of foreboding I am at a loss to express adequately. With Gordon Jenkyns I attended by invitation the reopening of the sumptuously rebuilt Kabukiza Theatre, and sat with a surge of strange and fearful emotions as the primitive, barbaric drama of Kabuki unfolded upon the great stage. First there was the ceremony of the drums, the slow hand-clap, followed by the measured phases of the ritualistic pattern. Kabuki is the domestic drama of Japan. Its appeal is, I think, to the senses, and particularly to the eyes, for the costume is gorgeous, and the movement curious and subtle. But to me it revealed, more than anything else I had seen, the vast chasm between East and West. As these fearsome, exquisitely robed and masked figures, shuffled and crouched about the stage in strange postures, awakening suddenly to a kind of frenzy, I realised a cruelty to which the tortured screams of the damned would not penetrate. I saw the ritual of no mercy, of no awareness of mercy, and shuddered away from it in a depth of horror I had known only in Germany, but never before in quite this way.

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II

On 4th January a British sergeant blew the last bridge across the Han, and the British Brigade closed the door behind the retreat from Seoul, as they had done at Pyongyang just a month earlier. Kimpo airport, which had become perhaps the busiest field in the world, was abandoned with much valuable equipment in flames. Seoul city was burning, more from the torches of the retreating South Koreans and the fire from the heavy naval guns once more operating off Inchon than from the few 122-mm. shells of the enemy. It seemed that the unhappy pattern was repeating itself: the skilful probing, the choice of the soft spots, followed by swift attacks launched with fury, leading to deep penetration, threatening to outflank both wings of the army. All at once it seemed that the threat might develop like lightning to force the holding of a beach-head round Pusan itself, and another round Inchon. Brigadier Brodie, commanding the British 29th Brigade, had ordered: "You'll only give ground on my orders. I've no intention that this unit will retire unless ordered by higher authority." For three days it had been apparent that the enemy was developing a three-pronged attack, and General MacArthur's estimates of the strength deployed against the Eighth Army had grown daily to alarming proportions. The North Koreans alone were now credited with twenty-two infantry divisions, one armoured division, and three brigades. Towards the end of December detailed figures of Chinese strength and positions were produced, and on 28th December they became astounding. The communique read: "The character of the major military effort by the Chinese communist government, though initially masked under the treacherous ruse of volunteer participation, is only too apparent in the deployment of all or elements of the Third and Fourth Field Armies which represent two out of five field armies constituting the entire military structure of China." MacArthur was determined to fight China if only on paper. It was also estimated by headquarters that six armies could launch a co-ordinated attack against the Eighth Army positions

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after 1st January. On this day also the United Nations 'Home by Christmas' offensive of late November was written down to 'a reconnaissance in force' undertaken in order to determine the extent of Chinese communist participation. Despite all this demoralising rubbish, I had continued to state my conviction that the United Nations, with their immensely superior fire power and complete domination of the air, could hold in Korea. For a day or two after the attack came in it looked like military disaster, but there had been one vital change in Korea which was to have the effect of transforming the whole situation. and which few of us were in a position to assess. Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway had replaced the dead Lieutenant-General Walton-Walker, and assumed command, not only of the Eighth Army, but also of the 10th Corps, and at last, for the first time since the Inchon landing, there was one Commander-in-Chief in Korea. But the character and ability of General Ridgway were unknown to most of us. On the face of it the first impression was good. In place of the sour, embittered, heavy jowls of Walton-Walker was a fine, lively face, with good eyes, and lines revealing humour and determination. In place of 'the swearing, pistol-packing Texan' described by the American weekly Newsweek, the Eighth Army had a bold-looking character, with two grenades hanging from his tunic high up on the right breast, queer decoration and armament for an army commander, and embarrassing from a British viewpoint. But many of us had learned that in most ways Americans are far more foreign to us than even the Turks, and that it is easy to be misled by these quaint outward signs. Furthermore, Ridgway was a genuine paratrooper. The American magazine Time commented: "After the Chinese communists smashed into North Korea, neither Walker's starched generalship nor the remote control direction of Douglas MacArthur's staff in Tokyo could give the army the direction it needed. Ridgway can." And Ridgway did. The army was in need of inspiration above all else. It was in need of the knowledge that somewhere someone knew what it was meant to be doing. Ridgway provided the inspiration and the confidence. Within a few days

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it was apparent that the impact of the new general had been felt throughout the entire shaky edifice, and the very real danger of complete evacuation of Korea had been averted. But even though this was not to be a military disaster, nothing could prevent the civilian disaster growing to almost unimaginable proportions. There was no safety, no life, no living room, for the people of Korea anywhere. It was all needed for the war, which had flowed back and forth across their stricken lands and homes, and was now at a new beginning. It was estimated that nearly one million souls trudged south and west out of the Seoul area, seeking sanctuary even on the barren islands round the coasts, while tens of thousands more pressed down upon them from the north. The tides of the homeless and bewildered and desperate began to burst the bounds of Korea, and just as they trudged the tracks with bundles of possessions, so now scores of boats sailed the ice-cold seas packed with refugees, most of them bound for death in the freezing nights, and the rest bound for nowhere at all. From Inchon now the tide flowed outward as the rescue ships, saving mostly official personnel, loaded up under the naval guns. Once more the ancient walled city of Suwon, where Ward Price and I had found our first inspiring story, was in the 'front line'. This was, indeed, almost exactly where I had come in.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE YELLOW SEA

ON THE night of 4th January a cable from London said simply: 'Please wait', perhaps the only form of words which could not be denied, and I cancelled my plans for Korea. Two days later I had orders to holiday for two weeks and proceed homewards in a leisurely manner. Neither of these courses was possible to me. I felt a desperate need for adventure, some scalding experience which might cut through all this horror and restore me to romance, and to perspective. I recognise now that I sought to regain the illusions I imagined th.a t I had lost. I had discovered as a youth, as most people do, I suppose, that to savour the essence of life, and to glimpse freedom, it is necessary to live dangerously-not stupidly-and with always a leaven of solitude. I had tried to do that, and had known moments of exhilaration beyond expression when all that is a person fuses with all creation. But in Korea there had not been such moments. In these months the time I had lived could not be measured in days or months. Years had been added to my maturity (however juvenile I may appear to modern youth and the 'sophisticated'). I had, at any rate, learned at last to face some of the truths about myself, and it is good that I was denied the 'scalding' adventure of escape for which my heart and emotions clamoured. For there should not be escape. Life is the brief prologue to infinite death, and illusion is real. It may be as real as life itself. It is simply unprovableand incurable for the romantic. Perhaps illusion is 'God'; and it would be more simple to destroy, for example, what T. S. Stribling, I think, called the 'Mystical apprehension' of God in a Spaniard or in an Hindu, than to destroy the mystical apprehension of romance and illusion in me. 280

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There was a story still to be told to round off the pattern of my Korean war experience. For months Captain Ronald King, my friend the Royal Marine, had tried by all possible means to lure correspondents to the navy and to tell the naval story. Whenever there had been the least excuse or probability of publication I had done so. The immense naval contribution of Britain and the Commonwealth was, and is, all too little realised. A powerful British Fleet had been placed at the disposal of the United Nations command at the outset, and had maintained constant patrols in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea. Led by the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Triumph, a fleet of twenty ships of war, including two, and at times three, light cruisers, and with three oilers and supply ships in addition, patrolled the dangerous coasts with unfailing vigilance, supported land operations whenever called upon to do so, and flew record numbers of air sorties. The gunnery of these ships and the remarkable efficiency of the carriers had drawn rather embarrassingly worded message of praise from the U.S. Admiral. At this time Vice-Admiral Andrewes flew his flag in the carrier, H.M.S. Theseus, which had replaced Triumph, and I asked Ronnie to send a signal. That night I took the train to Sasebo, the naval base at the extremity of the south-western Island of Kyushu, a thirty-six-hour train journey in the utmost discomfort. It was a military train and managed by N.C.0.s of such truculence that an American colonel and myself preferred to buy fruit and nuts at the stations rather than give the N.C.0.s and the Japanese waiters the opportunity to herd us. The seats were too small, and by night a kind of public sleeping compartment joined the train, and the night was as noisy as the day. It was good at last to see Sasebo and the beaming face of Commander Brockbank to welcome us. Seeing his broad grin and the naval uniform I felt all at once at home, in my own country. I wanted, above all, to escape for a while from the Americans, to let all my thoughts lie fallow. These hopes were short-lived, for the navy was full of misgivings and regarded me as the 'Horse's mouth'. The commander approached the American major at the barrier: "Might I get my driver to help us with the bags?"

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But the major scarcely let him get the words out of his mouth. "Youse guys wait your turn. I gotta clear these enlisted men." And with a scowl he waved the commander back. I had once heard a U.S. naval rating accept an order from a U.S. naval commander with the cryptic phrase: "O.K., you got de lace! " Brockbank had 'the lace', but it didn't work. Presently we were in our own naval jeep for a brief view of the town. Sasebo has sprung up like a mushroom almost reminiscent of the Goldrush days, and a fabulous swarm of whores had descended upon it like locusts, so that even the padres had found themselves struggling through the streets with women clinging to their arms. But now this hungry herd had been winnowed down to reasonable proportions. Neat rows of shops had been built and opened up with a variety of wares to tempt sailors. Ice-cream parlours and Coca-Cola stands added the finishing touch, and Sasebo was a boom town. We downed a couple of pink gins in the tiny wardroom Brockbank bad managed to find ashore, and a pinnace took us out to the light cruiser H.M.S. Kenya in the bay. Less than an hour after that I was fast asleep in the cabin of the flag lieutenant (for the admiral was aboard H.M.S. Theseus) which had been assigned to me, and with the use of the commander's private bathroom next door. This was paradise. II

The Kenya was alongside the U.S.N. heavy cruiser Rochester, and that night we welcomed the officers of the Rochester to the wardroom for a farewell party. They were homeward bound. These occasions were always embarrassing, especially in reverse, for the gap between the two 'ways of life' at sea is formidable and difficult to bridge. Our officers visiting ships of the U.S. Navy find themselves simply free to drink coffee, Coca-Cola, miss their dinner, and watch a cinema show. The Americans do not act as 'hosts', and they do not dine. Even ashore when there is drink available they normally inform their 'guests' that drinks are free until such and such a time, and leave it at that.

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In reverse, the Americans are astonished, and even bewildered, when they visit ships of foreign navies, by the fact that they are offered 'hard liquor' freely, and that every officer off watch puts himself at the service of his guests. The commander of the Kenya co-opted me to do my share. I knew some of the American officers from Inchon days, and they were a very pleasant crowd, yet it was difficult to break down the sense of being alien. Our guests arrived at 6 p.m., and at 7.30 had to be asked to excuse us for dinner. So at 7.30 they all went back to their ship and returned an hour later. It went off happily enough, and they were all at pains to try to accept drinking as a social amenity and not as a kind of competition. I was in a group with an American and a British lieutenantcommander, and the American could not understand why everyone wasn't drunk most of the time, how our ships-and indeed all foreign ships-sailed on time, hit targets, and generally navigated successfully. I noted down a part of his comment, for it is typical. "You mean the bar is open at sea? That you can get a drink before going on watch?" "Of course," said the British officer, "nothing like a couple of pink gins or a stiff whisky on a cold night." And we talked a bit about how pleasant it was to relax over a pink gin, scotch and soda or a cocktail before dinner, and have the occasional bottle of wine and a liqueur. This bewildered the American completely. He just could not understand why· everyone wasn't drunk. Finally he said: "But say-suppose a guy got a bad letter from home ... " He was somewhat embarrassed, and so were we. The British commander began to say something and checked himself. It certainly seemed remarkable to us that Americans are so afraid of drink, and approach it in much the same way as many primitive races. At midnight we sailed for the north, and an hour or two later the Rochester steered for home. No one disgraced themselves on either side. When I awoke from a magnificent sleep we were off Chinnampo in the Yellow Sea in brilliant sunshine, and I began to explore the ship and to discover what might be going on.

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I was marooned aboard H.M.S. Kenya for seventeen days as we steamed constantly on patrol from south of Inchon to 39.2 north almost in the Yalu estuary. The naval forces of the United Nations were unchallenged and exercised complete control of the Far Eastern seas. At this time the British and Commonwealth fleet under United Nations command consisted of: H.M.S. Theseus, aircraft carrier. H.M.S. Ceylon Kenya H.M.S. Cossack Constance " Concord Consort Charity "

}light cruisers.

} destroyers

Evertsen, destroyer Royal Netherlands Navy (formerly H.M.S. Scourge). Cayuga Athabaskan. Nootka Warramunga Bataan

l l l

destroyers, Royal Canadian Navy.

} destroyers, Royal Australian Navy.

H.M.S. Cardigan Bay ,, Morecambe Bay frigates. ,, St. Bride's Bay Tutira Rotoita Wave Laird Wave Prince Brown Ranger

} frigates, Royal N.Z. Navy.

oilers, supply vessels.

Added to the powerful U.S. naval forces headed by the battleship Missouri there was probably no combination of

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naval forces in the world able even to challenge this immense fleet. According to U.S. naval intelligence the Chinese had a fleet of 500 junks, constantly alerted and ready to run the gauntlet of the Yellow Sea to west coast North Korean ports. Nobody, so far as I was able to discover, even believed in the existence of this 'ghost' fleet, or in its ability, if it did exist, to navigate safely into North Korean coastal waters at this time of year, even if no one was trying to stop it. Yet this Chinese fleet was one of the main reasons for the constant and costly patrols. Without radar I believe it would have been impossible to navigate these waters in winter, and Commander Choi, the South Korean Naval Liaison Officer aboard the Kenya, stated that navigation in the north closed down completely in the winter months. Unfortunately U.S. naval intelligence seemed as inaccurate as military intelligence, and the Royal Navy was inclined to be rather less than half amused and rather more than half annoyed. 'Fifty junks' in its experience invariably materialised as half a dozen harmless small craft, and our ships were constantly chasing these shadows at full speed, anxious for action, and doomed always to disappointment. In the same way, when I had the opportunity for a long talk with the commander of the flight deck of H.M.S. Theseus, he told me that reports were almost always entirely wrong. At this time he was receiving urgent reports pin-pointing 'hordes' of enemy. At once in response he flew all the sorties he could muster, literally 'hedge hopping' and finding nothing but refugees. Later I discussed these things with American reporters and they told me that much the same sort of thing had occurred frequently in the Pacific war and that on one memorable occasion more ships had been sunk than were in the entire convoy. At best it was disconcerting. And it was inexplicable. Most of these reports derived from air observation. How did they mistake, not once, but invariably, five small craft for fifty junks, and refugees for armies, usually in bright sunny weather, and without hindrance to careful observation?

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There was a good deal of uneasiness, and the feeling was freely expressed that this large fleet was wearing itself out to little purpose. The light cruiser Jamaica had gone home for a refit in a terrible condition, and the Kenya was no better. She had steamed for fifty-six days, a total of more than 42,000 miles, when she reached Hong Kong after this period of duty. She had had steam up for fifty-eight days. In the engine-rooms one needed an umbrella. Normally the Admiralty programme calls for 10,000 miles annually, and these ships were not built or equipped to stand this pressure. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the necessary patrolling could have been adequately maintained by a destroyer flotilla with the heavier ships at reasonable call on the Far Eastern stations of Hong Kong or Singapore. The desire of all members of the crew to know about the land war was embarrassing. It had become obvious to all that something was wrong, and the sudden changes had baffled officers and men. Not only the wardroom and the gunroom plied me with difficult questions, but every petty officers' and seamen's mess wanted the lowdown on the Americans. The captain was adamant that they should not be told and stated categorically that any criticism of United States troops was treason. This astounding view could not, of course, be questioned, but at the same time I was asked to lecture to the officers and crew on the war situation. This I did, confining myself successfully to the story of the Commonwealth Brigade and side-stepping outside questions- which were often very shrewdly put-with, said the engineer-commander and the first lieutenant, 'diplomatic skill'. It was as happy a wardroom on the Kenya as I should imagine a wardroom can be, and I was made thoroughly at home from the moment of going aboard. Within the first hour the enginner-commander and the lieutenant-commander, the first lieutenant, became my special friends, and there was not a dull moment in the days or nights. The Kenya had an armament of nine 6-inch guns in three turrets, eight 4-inch guns in pairs, and an impressive array of bofors and torpedo tubes. 'At frightful cost', .as the current

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phrase had it, we fired some of these guns every day for practice. It was tragic, living with guns (there were two on top of my cabin which fired at about 14.30 most afternoons, and shattered my naval siesta), to realise that in Britain, and all over the world, tremendous efforts were being made to overcome the world shortage of steel and non-ferrous metals to rebuild war-destroyed homes, factories, power houses, railways, docks, ships, cranes, agricultural implements, and to provide new machines for industry, while here, in and around Korea, steel and precious metals were being dispersed in fragments all over the place in huge quantities. War in the midst of peace is always a more terrible anomaly. The Kenya had been built before the latest developments of radar, and her whole 'insides' were chock-a-block with equipment, tucked into every hole and corner and obtruding into every alleyway in Heath Robinson confusion. This was a remarkable contrast with the Rochester, where almost everything was built in and enclosed. Yet the curious thing was that American gunnery was remarkably bad, almost 'miraculously' bad, and ours was as good as it should be. I watched the miracle of the gunnery tables and the team of men absorbed in their work, translating the messages of the instruments and feeding the guns. There is a considerable human element in spite of modern wonders, and officers were agreed that it takes six months for a ship to work really efficiently. Six months is the period of duty in the United States Navy, against our two years, and this, I believe, explains their inefficiency. Crews are just about getting together and beginning to work their ships when they go home and a new crew comes aboard. I had watched the miracle of radar in aircraft and on aerodromes, guiding aircraft in and out blind, but navigating this rock-bound coast of Korea through blizzards was even more impressive. I had few idle hours, for with the captain of marines I delved into the magazines and the intricacies of the turrets, and no department of the ship was left unseen and unsung, but whenever possible I slipped away to the 'Black Magic' department of the first lieutenant and watched us steaming blind at 20 knots in perfect formation, with a screen of

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five destroyers ahead, then the solid bulk of the Theseus, and a few other ships coming up in the rear.

Four days out of the seven the sun shone with power and brilliance, and in the evenings I walked the decks full tilt with the engineer and electrical commanders on their passionate constitutionals, or lay watching the whales blowing to seaward and the forbidding coasts of North Korea, looming grey and desolate a few miles away to leeward. By night, as we steamed north almost to the Chinese coast, the whole ship became topheavy with ice, so that with the dawn all available hands hosed down with hot water and chipped the ship free again. By afternoon some of the crew off watch would dance Highland reels on the decks in brilliant sunshine. One night as we steamed north and watched the glory of the sunset working a marvellous alchemy of colour in sea and sky the chief engineer remarked: "Odd to think that one could fly westward in a de Havilland and hold trni.t sunset all the way home at 500 m.p.h. It's only about 4,500 miles by that route." It was curious to think of people hurtling about in the skies a good deal faster than 'time' and arriving at places even before they start. These were most restful days, for which I was grateful, but it was not entirely pleasure cruising, for the British Navy was engaged largely on errands of mercy, and I was privileged to know and observe a new and terrible aspect of the civilian tragedy which has overtaken Korea. IV

For several hours on most days the Kenya with a destroyer escort steamed close inshore, threading her way between the desolate island rocks which gird the coastal approaches. Sometimes these journeys would be in response to demands for aid, or more usually to stand by some South Korean patrol vessel. engaged on the never-ending task of civilian rescue. I have seldom seen a more forbidding outline than the harsh ridges of the North Korean hills rising in grey icy slopes from the narrow shelvings of the beaches. Here and there a solitary

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hut or a small cluster of thatch on the scrub-covered foothills showed a sign of life. It was the kind of coast from which mariners of earlier days, unless hard put to it for water, would sheer off, seeking more inviting sanctuary. Now in these January days and nights of mid-winter and bitter cold, with the sea temperature seldom more than a degree or two above freezing, it was a coast of despair and death. Everywhere the pressure of the communist forces had driven hosts of refugees to the limits of the land. Behind them their homes and lands were laid waste, and the country could no longer yield to them even a means of existence. Hemmed in by high explosive, and by armies which had ebbed and flowed over them like the tides, they surged into the sea. Day after day I watched the processions of little ships, loaded to their waterlines with household goods, many with two or three at the oars to aid a shred of sail, and many too small and unstable even for this. Beside this spectacle of small, unseaworthy craft filled with rice and humanity and all the junk of poor and stricken people, barely able to keep afloat in the sheltered calm offshore, the columns on land were. almost happy. For these, tens of thousands, taking to the seas in a myriad frail craft, only the barest hope of survival remained. The whole narrow belt of coastline and all the islands were ignored by the communists in their drive south, mainly through the mountainous central region, and there were still South Korean troops isolated on the Chinnampo peninsula and on some of the larger islands. From the bridge of the Kenya we watched the boats pushing off from the beaches to seek the shelter of barren and desolate rocks without means of supporting a single human soul. On such rocks as these in scores and hundreds and thousands the refugees sought sanctuary and tried to ferry supplies of rice from the mainland. Their plight was pitiful in the extreme. To light fires at night to escape death by cold was to invite death from the ever vigilant bombers. All the seas from north to south held a procession of these unseaworthy craft, each with its human burden, few of whom could hope to withstand nights which covered a ship like the Kenya with a heavy coating of thick ice in a few hours. Even T

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the normal perils of the sea were too great without this added horror. Meanwhile small South Korean patrol vessels worked indefatigibly at rescue, and by their aid many of the more fortunate were brought to sanctuary. Peasant groups had laboriously built up stores of rice on the more sheltered islands. On the Isle of Choddu off the Chinnampo peninsula there were as many as 25,000 men, women and children reinforced by constant new arrivals, huddled, prostrate with cold and hunger, and fearful of fire, for their first efforts had brought down fire from the skies upon them. This island had become a kind of unofficial collecting point, and on a Sunday morning we saw the South Koreans embark 8,000 of these poor people on an old L.S.T. which would have been overloaded with one tenth of the number. Slowly the vessel steamed southward through the treacherous shoals and channels, and we stood by until dusk and watched the L.S.T. dissolve into the hideous night. Nothing that would .float was disregarded as a means of escape, and for me these sights expressed the quintessence of the civilian tragedy that war has become. The Kenya herself had performed various works of rescue, and her marines had answered an S 0 S from a marooned lighthouse keeper, who kept his light burning though without food for three weeks. He and his wife and three children had braved the slippery rocks at the base of the lighthouse to collect seaweed and small crustaceans, and on these they had lived. In these days I lost my last illusions about war. I had called myself for some years a 'war reporter'. It would be more accurate to call myself a reporter of death. Death in all its ghastliest forms made a most dreadful pageant in my mind back through the years, and more and more the memories of soldiers and battles were overlaid by the long and hopeless trails of the civilians. I had walked knee deep in the most vile kind of death in the obscene prison sheds of Belsen. And side by side with death through much of Europe and a great part of Asia marched the gaunt, ragged, hopeless columns of despair. And now at the last I saw them even on the seas.

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In my mind's eye on that January evening I could see the trail leading back from the beaches through the blackened ruins and rubble of tens of thousands of homes, the corpses rotting in the sodden ditches, bursting in the hot sun, strewn over so many lands like offal, rotting in the ruins of dead towns, rotting in the bull-dozed pits or hacked by the to-be-executed to save trouble, in the slave camps, even in the jungle. Death comes now in ever more hideous guises, death to the unseen, the unknown multitudes, the remote communities, unaware as they go about their business, of living and loving, growing things and making things, that someone may have surrounded them on a map, and may 'press a button'. Soldiers have become the street cleaners of the new war. The great toll of civilian death in Korea has been estimated as high as two million. No one can know. In London we had a foretaste of the death that comes silently, unheralded, blasting hundreds to bits, and sending huge chunks of masonry thousands of feet into the sky when the puny V 2s came. I have become acquainted with death in many previously unimaginable forms. I remember so well arms, legs, heads, busts, buttocks, hands, in macabre confusion in the death pits. I remember men roasting alive, or starved to grotesque caricatures, disintegrating in obscene heaps. But all these memories have become mere child's play. Soon the civilians may disappear without trace as progress marches on. There is no more war. It is old-fashioned. It began to go out with our fathers and grandfathers. The glamour is false. The illusion is gone. The writing is on the wall in letters of blood and bits, and this is the latest message from Korea.

THE EPILOGUE A FEW minutes before the dawn on 24th January I was passed by jackstay from H.M.S. Kenya into the arms of two sturdy Dutch sailors on board the destroyer Evertsen. As the 'bosun's chair' swung above the grey pinnacles of the seas between the two vessels steaming ahead, I waved to my friends. I was going home. I was going away from war towards peace, and away from despair towards hope. This was the first leg of my journey. It was a happy omen to be aboard the Dutchman, celebrating with the mid-morning 'juniper juice', the gin of the Netherlands, with Lieutenant-Commander Van Doorninck and his bi-lingual crew. For Holland is my second country 'by marriage', and it was fitting that the Dutch should help me on my way. They were very happy to be under British command. Admiral Andrewes had claimed and welcomed them as comrades in arms as soon as they had arrived, for the two races have a long and glorious sea tradition, intertwined in battle, as an old print in the wardroom showed, off my own coast of Suffolk. The Kenya had sent a signal to Sasebo and another to Ronnie King to book me out on the B.O.A.C. Argonaut from Tokyo on the 27th. The admiral's orders for home were in my pocket, and now that I was truly on my way the whole tempo of my spirits rose. The Evertsen rushed through the grey seas to Sasebo on time, but there was no room on the train, and in a naval car I dashed one hundred miles over bad roads to seek an aircraft at Itazuke. It was odd to be at Itazuke again, for now the design was forming in reverse, and the auguries growing. This was the airport from which I had flown to Inchon and had not seen since. Two U.S. flag lieutenants joined me, and together we hitch-hiked on an overloaded C 47 to Komaki, and on with a jump take-off to Tokyo. But there were no fears now, for the 293

294

THE EPILOGUE

pattern would unfold swiftly to its end, and even Bangkok would not arouse a twinge of apprehension. I had one full day in Tokyo to tie all the loose ends. Regulations over all the route had grown more complicated even since my arrival, and it was necessary to have transit visas for Burma and Thailand before the B.0.A.C. would embark a passenger. But I had my British orders from the admiral in my pocket and could leave Japan without supplicating the U.S. P.1.0. for aid. They had warned me that I would not be allowed to leave the country without their permission, and I had resented the spirit and the way of it. By evening on Saturday I had achieved the almost impossible, handed in all my military clothing, and provided the everwelcoming Eleanor with the receipt. "Don't say goodbye, Tarmy," she said. "They won't let you go without our orders. You'll see! " "Goodbye, Eleanor dear," I said. "An.d thanks for everything." The Marunouchi was almost empty now. Ralph Izzard was coming with me as far as Hong Kong on his way back to his home in Cairo, and Steve Barber was the last survivor of those who had been here to welcome me in the first days. We .dined and drank quietly together, and at four in the morning Ralph and I went out to Haneda to relax in the upholstered comfort of the Argonaut. Once more we flew the long sea route over the pale-green hills of Formosa to land on the cold, unwelcoming wastes of Okinawa. It was late afternoon when I saw again the splendour of Hong Kong, and we swooped in seeming to brush the hills with our wing tips. That night Ralph and I crossed to Hong Kong in the Kowloon ferry, sent our last messages of war from the cable office, and relaxed to drink with British naval friends, belatedly celebrating Christmas after weeks on Far Eastern patrol. This was the parting of the ways, and only now did I feel the urgency for home rising like a tide within me. The Argonaut flew safely out of Hong Kong in the dawn, over the seas and the Burma Road for luncheon in Bangkok, up and over the rice paddies to Rangoon. There were no nights now of rest, for the speed of the journey had been greatly increased,

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and the aircraft landed only to refuel. In the small circular lounge aft I dozed away the days and nights, yarning with the captain and his second in command, and with a British naval captain, as we lazily contemplated the clouds and the changing patterns of the world beneath. And all the time the aircraft rushed away from the sun, diminishing the nine-hour gap of time which separated me from my dreams. I looked down again upon the breadth of India with its teeming millions, and down again upon the face of the full moon held in the dark waters of the Persian Gulf. In the cold twilight of morning we came into Basra, no longer scorched by the burning winds of summer, but glad of the chilI breeze of winter. Only the desert lay now between me and the very 'suburbs' of home, but the starboard engine, upon which we had cast sidelong glances as it had faltered through the night, held us chained to this dreary place through all the day and night, so that I chafed for some other means of flight, and, finding none, explored the dull earthen streets of Basra, until the Argonaut took off again above the old wrinkled face of the desert. So we fled above the ancient trails and watercourses, to glimpse the pyramids ·and swoop down into the suspicions of Cairo, which had grown greatly in these few months. But here were the very walls of home, and we leapt high above the Mediterranean to escape a vicious 'weather front' which thrust vast turbulent cloud masses to tower in dark majesty more than 20,000 feet above the Isles of Greece. Rome in the twilight, and out again climbing steeply into the darkness giving space to the high alps which still pluck the unwary from the sky. And at last, miraculously, the coast of Britain, great scarves and scimitars of light, and the vast expanse of London. Soon after midnight I stood with my wife at the wide windows of one of those lovely rooms of the Savoy overlooking the river, and the very heart and spirit of London, and of Britain itself, seemed to pulse and breathe beneath me, and all about. . This was the moment I had dreamed of on many rivers for many months and which I had promised myself. And it was the true fulfilment of my dream.

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The shapes of ancient buildings weathered in the storms of centuries bounded the darkness holding the river in a peaceful embrace, and the yellow lights of the Embankment lay upon the dark stream in glistening gentle swathes, stirring faintly as though rocked in a cradle. The hands of Big Ben pointed to the hour of one at the beginning of a new day, and a new month. It was the First of February. It seemed a miracle that all this had come true, that only seven days before I had been almost within the Yalu estuary on the frontiers of Manchuria, and had rushed by ship and truck and aircraft across the world to this ancient river, upon whose banks, I believe, are centred still the best hopes and aspirations of mankind. Hintlesham, Suffolk, May 1951.

INDEX

INDEX A Almond, Gen. Edward, S3, 79, 191, 209, 2S8 Ambassador, Russian, to North Korea, 181 American Club, Tokyo, 2S, 100, 212 Andrewes, Vice-Admiral, 86, 281, 293 Argyll and Sutherland H, 38, 102, 123, 129, 1S9, 160, 172, 224, 226, 227, 229 Ashiya, 31, SI, 56, 80, 81, 83, 219, 220 A.P. (Associated Press), 59, 100 Atami, 213, 21S Athabaskan, Royal Canadian Navy 284 • Australian Battalion, 102, 129, 130, 164, 172, 177, 224, 226, 227, 258

B Bangkok, 13, 14, 297 Barber, Stephen, 67, 133, 134 et seq., 178, 181, 216, 267, 268, 294 Basra, 13, 14, 29S Bataan, Royal Australian Navy, 284 B.B.C., 40, 190 Bennyhoff, 158, 222, 223, 228, 233 Bigart, Homer, 100; 177, 219, 220, 233 et seq., 251, 252, 267, 270 Bourchier, Air Vice-Marshal 215 Brigade, 27th (Commooweaith), 104, 116, 121, 128, 129, 149, 155 et seq., 167 et seq., 189, 191, 208, 209, 210, 219 et seq., 247 et seq., 286 29th, 108, 210, 212, 229, 243, 253 et seq., 260, 263, 265 et seq. British Fleet, 281, 284 Brockbank, Commander, 28 1 282 Brodie, Brigadier, 274, 277 ' Brown Ranger, 284 Buckley, Christopher, 106

c

Ceylon Cardigan Bay Cayuga Charity Concord Consort Constance Cossack

Cheju Channel, 33 Chiang Kai-Shek, 87 98 Chicago Herald Trib;me, 99 China, 71, 98, 146, 188, 190, 206 269 277 • • Chinese, 37, 41, S3, 76, 98, 145, 147, 180, 188, 190, 195, 206, 209, 212, 228, 240, 264, 271 Chinese Communist Forces, 208, 210, 211, 212, 224, 230, 242 245 246 et seq., 26S, 273 et seq. ' ' Chlnese Fleet, 28S Chinese Koreans, 190, 19 1 Chinnampo, 34, 176, 22S, 266, 283 289, 290 • Choddu, Isle of, 290 Chongchon river, 121, 189, 190, 208, 209, 222 et seq., 249 Choi, Commander, 28S Chongju, 23S, 237, 238, 239, 240 242 2S9 • • Chosen Hotel, 91 Chosin Reservoir, 230, 242 Christian Science Monitor, 28 Chung Hi Yong, 86 Chungwa, 167, 168, 171-3, Church, General, 235 Churchill, Randolph, 97, 100 106, 130-2, 149 • Churchill, Winston, 22 Cinderella Brigade (27th), 224 229 Coad, Brigadier, 128, 224, 226, 232, 2S6 Commando, Royal Marine, 16, 2S8 Communique No. 12, 236 Consolation, Hospital ship, S2, 64 Corps, 1st, 222, 223, 228, 233 23S 238, 241, 250, 251 • • 9th, 155, 237, 240-2 10th, 97, 103, 191, 209, 2S8, 278 40th Chinese, 190 Crane, Lionel, SS, 7S, 80-2, 99 169 216, 268 • •

D Daichi building, 25 Destroyers and Fri- Daily Express, 7S gates of H.M. Royal Daily Mail, SO, 253 and.Royal Canadian Davidson, Michael, 26S Navies, 284 Division, 1st Cavalry, 103, 107, IIS et seq., 128 et seq., 146, JSS, 168, 172 et seq., 202, 22S, 242, 2S4, 2S7, 273 299 Light cruiser,

INDEX

300

Division-contd. 2nd Infantry, 235, 242- 3, 245-6, 252, 255-6 7th Infantry, 49, 60- 3, 74, 258 24th Infantry, 146, 149, 155- 6, 168, 189, 208- 9, 235, 241- 2 25th Infantry, 235, 241-2, 247 1st Marine, 48, 49 et seq., 191 South Korean, 168 Donne, John, 197 Dutch Troops, 213 E Eckert, Lieut., 28 et seq. Edison, 182 Edwards, Capt., 56, 177 Eighth Army, 63, 90, 97, 103, 106, 113, 115, 150, 157, 160, 165, 170, 191, 208-9, 229, 245, 251- 2, 255, 274, 277-8 Eisenhower, General, 268 Ellis, Lieut., 21, 23, 25, 26 Embassy, Hungarian, 180 Embassy, Russian, 179 Evertsen, Royal Netherlands Navy, 284, 293 Extel (Exchange Telegraph Agency), 20

F Ferrero, Lee, 169, 177, 219- 20, 233-4, 249,251 Fifth Air Force, 106 Fletcher, Major Mike, 24, 25 Foister, George Thomas, 22- 3, 25, 31, 81, 100, 216, 253 Forbes, Bernard, 40, 68, 73, 100, 190-1, 193, 206, 257, 263 Formosa, 97, 98, 145, 188-9, 271, 294 Freeman, Colonel, 246-7, 250 Fujiyama (Fujisan), 29, 192, 194, 272, 273 G

Gajo-en Hotel, 272 Garry Owen's, 120 et seq., 149-50, 168, 225-6 Gascoigne, Sir Alvary, 215 Gay, General, 145- 6, 156- 7, 173-4, 225,229 Genghis Khan, 201 Ghandi, 270 G.H.Q., 25, 189, 190, 208, 212, 214, 236,265 G.H.Q., North Korean Army, 211 Ginza, 23, 213- 14, 272 Gould, Capt., 65, 82 Green, Colonel, 228, 229

H Haeju, 107 Haeng-Ju, 52 Hakalwoo-Ri, 230, 242, 258 Hamhung, 257, 258 Han River, 43, 49, 51, 55, 60, 65, 71, 74,82,93,211,277 Randleman, Howard, 209 Haneda, 16, 99, 294 Hanpo-Ri, 149 Harding, General Sir John, 129 Harris, Major-General Field, 48 Harris, Colonel Billy, 119 et seq., 146, 149, 156, 168, 225 Hawley, Frank, 100, 190 et seq. Hays, Jimmy, 158, 160, 216, 257, 268 Heijo, 251 Hemingway, 28, 198 Herbert, Sam, 133 Heren, Louis, 45, 67, 158, 160, 189, 216 Herman, Georgie, 45, 61, 112, 268 Hill, Lieut., 28 et seq. Hitler, 201 Hodgson, Allied Rep. Control Council Japan, 217 Holmes, Colonel, 157, 176, 225 Hongkong, 15,97, 104, 106,286,294 Hon~hu, 29 Hooper, Duncan, 216 Huff, Lieut.-Col., 120, 150-1 Hughes, Dick, 216 Hughes, Willie, 217 Huichon, 189 Hungnam, 258, 266, 268, 273 Hungso-Ri, 159, 160 Hurman, Roland, 253, 257 Hwanju, 155, 160, 166, 168, 169, 170 I

Imjin River, 103, 113, 114, 115 Imperial Edict, 276 Imperial Hotel, 214 Imperial Palace, 23, 275 Inchon, 29 et seq., 76, 82, 90 et seq., 183, 202, 252, 277-9, 284, 293 lndo-China, 97, 189 l.N.S., 81, 177, 209, 253 ltazuke, 29, 30, 42, 293 Iwakuni, 213, 218, 219 Izzard, Ralph, 268, 275, 294 J

Jamaica, H.M.s., 286 James, Mike, 139, 140, 141, 144, 149, 177

301

INDEX Japan News, 213, 214, 271 Japan Sea, 94, 101, 258, 281 Jenkyns, Gordon, 213, 214, 216, 271, 272, 276 Jolson, Al, 32 Jones, Charlie, 27, 28, 31, 35 Jones, Gene, 35 K Kabuki-Za, 276 Kaesong, 107, 115, 116, 119, 134, 136-7, 147, 158, 172, 273 Kanggye, 189, 190, 208, 211, 230 Kaplan, Bernie, 45, 61, 100, 112, 221, 258, 268 Kawana, 215, 272, 273, 275 Kems!ey Newspapers, 158 Kenya, H.M.S., 282 et seq. Kesia (typhoon), 31 Kim, Dr., 92 Kim JI Sung, 79, 149, 180, 181 Kimpo, 43 et seq., 64 et seq., 80 et seq., 102etseq.,127, 139, 177, 183,220, 221, 257, 258, 277 King, capt. Ronald, R.M., 272, 281, 293 Ki-Poong-Li, 21, 93 Komaki, 293 Kowloon, 293 Krock, Arthur, 265 Kumchon, 116, 122, 128, 146 et seq. Kunu-Ri, 225 et seq., 237 er seq., 259 Kure, 213, 219 Kyushu, 29, 281

L Laister, Major Tom, 15, 16, 24, 25, 108, 109 et seq., 250 Lambert, Tom, 100, 237 et seq. Life and Time, 179, 234 M MacArthur, General, Supreme Commander, 36, 50, 55, 84 et seq., 98, 100, 101, 145, 147, 176-7, 183, 188, 191, 192, 208 et seq., 234-6, 253, 256, 263-5, 267, 271 et seq. Macartney, Roy, 173, 213, 218 et seq. Macdonald, Lachie, 50, 64 Mahler, 268 Manchuria, 15, 98, 146, 188, 190, 209, 211, 235, 296 . Manchurian Area Command, 212 Manpojin, 211 Marines, U.S., 29 er seq., 107, 202, 242, 258

Marshall Aid, 200 Martin, Dwight, 179, 180, 182, 233, 234, 237 Marunouchi Hotel, 16, 19, 20, 23- 5, 97, 212, 215, 216, 264, 294 de Maupassant, 33 McCarthy, Senator, 101, 264 McKinley, U.S. Command ship, 36, 44,48,49, 50,64,67 Middlesex Bn., 102, 128, 129, 146, 164 et seq., 224, 226, 256, 258 M.I.G.15, 212 Mikado, 275, 276 Milburn, General, 173, 174, 177, 223, 229 Missouri, U.S. Battleship, 284 Monson, Ron, 228 Morecambe Bay, H.M.s., 284 Morrison, Jan, 106 Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 215 Muir, Major, 38 Munsan-Ni, 115 Mussolini, 201 N Naked and the Dead, The 268 Naktong River, 34, IOI, 105, 107, 116, 149, 165, 229 Namchonjon, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154 Napch'ongjon, 237 N.B.C., 22 News Chronicle, 67, 133 Newsweek, 258, 278 New York Herald Tribune, 177 New York Times, 139, 209, 219, 265 Nikko, 213 Nippon Times, 276 Nootka, Royal canadian Navy, 284 North Korean Army, 34, 79, 88, 104, 107, 121, 125, 143, 147, 165, 172, 191, 208,211, 230,274,277 N.Z. Field Regt., Arty., 216 0 Odurami, Mt., 193, 799 Okinawa, 16, 30, 294 Oppama, 26 Osan-Ni, 63 Ottawa, 271, 272 Owen, Frank, 97, 99, 105, 214 p

Paekchon, 121, 122, 124, 127 Paik, General, 168, 173, 175, 178 Pakchon, 121, 189, 208-9, 223 et seq., 237-9, 247

INDEX

302

Parallel, 38th, 37, 88, 98, 103, 107, 116, 121, 126, 145, 182, 273 Park, Brigadier, 215 Parrot, Lindsay, 209 Parrot, Monty, 105, 106 Partridge, General, 177 Pavilion of Ever-increasing Clouds, 191 et seq. Pekin, 190 Percival, Jack, 27, 31, 33, 56 Peter the Great, 201 Port Arthur, 269 Press Club, Tokyo, 97, 212, 264, 270 Price, Ward, 40 et seq., 97, 130, 216, 268, 275, 279 Prime Minister (Britain), 215, 264 Pringle, Jim, 233 Proctor, Squadron-Leader, 219 Provost-Marshal, 21 Public Information Office (P.I.0.), 21, 23, 36, 50-1, 56, 61-2, 81. 83-4, 90, 99, 105-7, I 15-16, 131, 150, 177,211,220,294 Public Relations, Australian, 221 Public Relations, British, 15, 108, 254 Puller, Colonel, 60, 68, 7 I, 75, 86, 88 Pusan, 16, 94, 107, 277 Pyongyang, 116, 127, 145, 166 et seq., 202, 203, 208, 218 et seq., 241, 250 et seq., 277

R Radio Tokyo, 20, 22, 23, 97 Rangoon, 14, 294 Redman, Vere, 216 Regiment, 5th Cavalry, 116, 128, 146, 148 7th Cavalry, 116, 119 8th Cavalry, 116, 128, 135, 146, 148 Reuter, agency, 67, 105, 215, 250, 251 Rich, John, 81, 177, 253 Ridgway, Lieut.-General Matthew, 278 Robertson, Lieut.-General Sir Horace, 213, 215, 217, 219, 263 Rochester, U.S. heavy cruiser, 35, 282, 287 Rotoita, Royal N.Z. Navy, 284 Russian, 98, 145, 179, 180, 181, 188, 198, 201, 206, 219, 230, 269, 272 Russo-Japanese War, 41

s Sariwon, 157-9, 160, 165, 172, 229 Sasebo, 86, 281, 282, 293 Scourge, H.M.s., 284

Seoul, 37 et seq., 137, 139, 157 et seq., 208, 211, 216, 230, 254, 273 et seq. Shaw, Tom, 99, 268 Sinanju, 190, 209, 222, 227, 235, 242, 243, 247 Siniaju, 211, 212 Sinmak, 155, I 70 Singapore, 12, 24, 189, 286 Slim, Capt., 103 Smith, Bill Sydney, 177 Song of Solomon, 199 South Africans, 216 South Korean (troops), 52, 74, 78, 88, 103, 107, 118, 146, 187, 189, 190, 191, 208, 209, 225, 230, 232, 235,241,242,243,259,277,289 Sparks, Freddie, 99, 100 et seq., 216, 258 Stalin, 79, 149, 180, 181 'Stars of the South Korean Theatre', 135 Stassen, Harold, 265 St. Bride's Bay, H.M.S., 284 Steward, Major Hal, 116, 131, 147, 155, 156, 157, 169, 170, 175 Stevens, Colonel, 229, 235, 237 et seq. Stratemeyer, General, 215 Stribling, T. S., 280 Suichon, 230 Sukch'on, 176, 241, 243, 254 Sunch'on,241,242,246,250,255 Suwon, 61, 62, 63, 64, 112, 279 'Swann's Way', 127 Sydney Morning Herald, 228 Synghman Rhee, 87, 88, 98, 145, 205, 273

T

Taechon, 235 Taedong River, 165, 173, 254, 265 Taegu, 19 et seq., 79, 102 et seq., 137, 258, 263 Taejon, 63, 79 Taeryong River, 237, 238, 242 Thanksgiving Day, 229 et seq. The Times, 67, 100, 189, 190 Theseus, H.M.S., 281, 282, 284, 285, 288 Thompson, Pilot, Cargo Command, 220, 221 Thoreau, 148 Time magazine, 258, 278 Tockch'on, 235, 241, 242, 245 Tokyo, 11 et seq., 19 et seq., SO, 51, 55, 59, 64, 81, 82, 94 et seq., 170, 188 et seq. Tokyo Club, 214 Townshend, General, 231

INDEX Triumph, H.M.S., 16, 31, 281 Turenne, Henri, 45, 51, 61, 68, 70 Truman, President, U.S.A., 252, 264 Turkish Brigade, 231, 241, 242, 243, 245, 255 Turkish staff officers, 138 Tutira, Royal N.Z. Navy, 284

u

Uijongbu, 275 United Nations, 29, 52, 53, 67, 83, 86, 87, 88, 89, 98, 103, 145, 182, 188, 189, 190, 200, 202, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 218, 227, 236, 238, 247, 266, 271, 277, 278, 281, 284 Unilever, 182

303

Walker, General Walton, 90, 177, 191, 209, 230, 235, 252, 256, 274, 278 Warner, Denis, 80 Washington, 97, 100, 222, 264, 271 Warramunga, Royal Australian Navy, 284 Wave Laird, supply ship, British, 284 Wave Prince, supply ship, British, 284 Wavell, Field-Marshal Lord, 268 Wei Hei Wei, 269 Whicker, Alan, 20 et seq., 48, 56, 73, 82 et seq., 100 et seq., 159 et seq. Woldimo, 37 Wonsan, 107, 191 World's Press News, 150

v

y

Valentine, Alex, 67, 112, 158, 160 Van Brundt, General, 223, 229, 234, 235, 238 Van Doorninck, Lieut.-Commander, 293 Vladivostock, 219

Yalu River, 146, 177, 189, 190, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 234, 249, 253, 284, 296 Yazici, Brigadier-General Tahsin, 231, 245 Yellow Sea, 34, 237, 238, 259, 281, 283, 285 Yesong River, 120, 121, 122, 126 Yokohama, 26 Yokusuka, 26 Yongbyon, 189, 225, 226, 227, 231

w Walker, David, 257 Walker, Gordon, 28, 30, 31, 36, 178, 221